


This Calls For A Drink

by mandrakefunnyjuice



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alcoholism, Cyber-zombies, Epic Bromance, Explosions, F/M, Gen, Guns, Humor, Naughty language, No-Pants Tuesday, Other, Parody, Satire, Terrorists, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:14:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 50,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandrakefunnyjuice/pseuds/mandrakefunnyjuice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It was common knowledge that Commander John Shepard, N7 marine, first human Spectre, proud fiend of slavers, grudging savior of the galaxy, professional armed lunatic and notorious bamf, would do almost anything for a decent drink."</p><p>The story that shouldn't have been told.</p><p>Rated M for Manly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hawkeye Clause

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Bioware owns Mass Effect. I reserve the right to fuck around with their characters.
> 
> A/N: Pic found on DevArt, I believe by WithinSixMonths. Thought it fitting. Story also on FF.Net under this pseudonym. This one was/is/will be a lot of fun to write, but updates will be slowslowslow. 
> 
> Read and enjoy. Then drop a comment, or some kudos, or whatever. Feedback is loved, and motivates me to update faster.

 

  


* * *

There was a lot of fire and explosions and while those things were normally things Shepard liked, he didn't like it when they were happening to _his_ ship. That was just wrong in every way. Add to that, the distress beacon was being bitchy and Joker wouldn't leave the goddamn ship alone and Shepard had his angry armored hands full. Worst yet, he'd gotten up that very morning to discover the second worst thing he'd ever seen – his liquor stash was empty. The first worst thing he'd ever seen involved the genetic memory of the Protheans that he'd inherited from the asari Shiala (and by proxy the Thorian) which included, unfortunately, detailed accounts of Prothean mating rituals. It almost made him want to go on a diet of grapes and waste away to nothing.

And now, after forcing Joker's Vrolik's ass into an escape shuttle and accidentally pressing the release button before he could get in, Commander John Shepard was floating through space amongst the debris of his beloved ship.

He grunted and pouted for a bit. This wasn't the kind of death he'd envisioned.

The Commander going down with his ship, though? It was almost poetic. Except for the fact that his suit's air mask had ruptured and he was now losing oxygen fast. He thought of that Walt Whitman poem Ash had once recited for him; he was going to miss her. He assumed she made it into one of the escape pods. He had to assume. No more breath. The last thought he had, as he suffocated to death was: _Damn, I could really use a drink right about now._

Commander John Shepard, N7 marine, first human Spectre, proud fiend of slavers, casual drinker, grudging savior of the galaxy, professional armed lunatic and notorious bamf, was dead.

At least that's what he'd gathered after the very last memory he had was of floating through space to his cold death, surrounded by the wreckage of his precious ship, losing oxygen due to a suit rupture, and slowly and painfully suffocating to death.

As for the being dead itself part, Shepard would have to say it felt sort of like a nap. A painful nap without any pleasant sexy dreams, but still, a nondescript nap. He had about fifty of those per day.

The next thing he became aware of was a blurry brunette looking at him and cradling his head, shrieking something about sedatives in an Australian accent. He couldn't feel his own body, so he had the funny experience of feeling like a detached head for a brief amount of time. A few jokes came to mind but he couldn't feel his face and didn't know if he had a mouth, so he kept them to himself. There was also another less blurry bald man standing over a computer, and then everything became more blurry and Shepard became tired. Sedatives was right.

After that, it was more death. Or nap time. He couldn't distinguish between the two anymore.

Then there was an explosion—he awoke with a bit of a start, and a _massive_ headache. His face was also pure agony, so it wasn't surprising that his only verbal reaction was like this:

" **Augh, fuck,** _ **my face**_ **! What happened to my fucking face? Did I get mauled by a motherfucking grizzly bear? Did someone take a fucking cheese grater to my face? Teddy Roosevelt's** _ **left nut**_ **, my** _ **faaace**_ **!** "

" _Commander Shepard_!" A strangely familiar accented voice crackled over an intercom overhead.

Shepard took in his surroundings as he slowly sat up, cradling his searing head and glaring at every object he could see. It looked like he was in some kind of laboratory and he had been laying on a metal slab of some kind in it. There were monitors of all kinds strewn about the room but he wasn't hooked up to any of them, nor did he have any tubes inside his arms, and was therefore not in immediate danger. He assumed that whatever had happened to him was something either completely inexplicable or something he completely didn't give a shit about.

" _Commander Shepard, it's good that you're awake, you have to get up and out of that bed,_ " the voice continued with relief. It was female, and it was rather bossy sounding. Shepard looked up at the speaker, clutching his head and his painful face and glared at it.

He tried to stand up and was pleased to find he could feel his legs _and_ they worked, which wouldn't have happened if he was dead. So, that meant he was alive. That was good, right?

An explosion suddenly rocked the ground and he stumbled about, clutching the metal gurney he'd woken up on. "Yes," he muttered darkly, "this is the kind of thing I love waking up to."

" _Commander Shepard,_ " the voice from the intercom crackled, " _I'm Miranda Lawson. It's imperative that you listen to me: this facility is currently under attack._ "

Another explosion rocked the facility. "No, those were _friendly_ explosions!"

" _Sarcasm is useful to no one in this situation, Commander. There's a pistol and armor in the locker over there in the corner – suit up and I'll guide you from the suit's radio if I can, or the intercom. We need to get you out of here. Someone hacked security and is trying to kill you!_ "

He spied the locker that Miranda (apparently) spoke of and stumbled over there with his searing migraine to suit up. He was grudgingly happy that the armor was N7, but also suspicious – not because actual N7 armor was _never_ seen out of the Alliance's N7 program, but because it fit him snugly. Too snugly. Someone had taken extensive measurements when he was comatose. He just prayed it was the Aussie – he couldn't stand it if it turned out it was that one blurry bald guy he vaguely remembered. He turned on the radio on his omni-tool and heard Miranda's crackling voice and then grabbed the only weapon in the locker. The pistol, he discovered, wasn't his beloved HMWP X which made it automatically inferior, and—"This pistol doesn't have a thermal clip," he stated bluntly. "Who stores a weapon and doesn't put a thermal clip in? That's madness."

" _This is a medical facility,_ " the Aussie deadpanned, " _so I'm sorry if we're lacking in arsenal_."

"Every good doctor carries a firearm," Shepard told her firmly. "To assume otherwise is blasphemy."

Miranda paused, and then sighed over the radio. " _I couldn't even begin to tell you how anticlimactic this is for me. Just because we're in a medical facility in the future and in space does_ not _mean that doctors now have to carry personal weapons. Only salarian doctors do that, and that's only due to the fact that all salarian doctors are members of the STG by force of contract!_ "

Shepard rubbed his forehead in pain. The things he would do for some painkillers, or a stiff drink right now... "Lady, I don't know what kind of doctors _you_ know, but every single one I've ever known has an arsenal beneath their desk somewhere, with more thermal clips than you could shake a hanar at."

" _What?_ "

"That one Russkie doctor on the Citadel doesn't count," he defended quickly, "but hell, Chakwas had a vintage Aratech hidden in her office, right next to the champagne and the Serrice Ice Brandy."

" _In a_ med-bay? _That's absurd!_ " Miranda's Lawson's voice spluttered.

"It's called the Hawkeye clause. Look it up."

" _It doesn't matter. At all. I can't even believe we're having this conversation, or that this conversation happened. The point you distracted me from is there should be some thermal clips in the next room or something since a nondescript staff member died out there and probably thoughtfully dropped some thermal clips on the ground amidst his agonizing death throes. You should—shit!_ " She cried suddenly.

"You're in the bathroom?" Shepard wrinkled his nose in disgust. "You talk to people on the phone when you're in the bathroom? That's just weird."

" _No! Bah!_ " Miranda snapped eloquently. " _There's a couple of canisters that are about to explode near the door. Get behind something, quick!_ "

"In a _med-bay_ ," Shepard mocked in a false falsetto and yet got behind some conveniently placed plexi-glass. Sure enough, by the one door out of the med bay, several random canisters exploded. After the smoke cleared Shepard made a break for the door and sure enough, found a thermal clip for his pistol in the next room lying next to a faceless dead body.

"First corpse of the day," Shepard said absently, snapping in the thermal clip. "I could use a drink."

" _Before you ask_ ," Miranda suddenly cut in, _"no, there is_ no _alcohol in this facility._ "

This was an outrage, to say the least! "Damn it all, what kind of doctors are you?" Shepard raged, and gave a dry sob. "I miss my ship."

He went into the next room where he discovered several more dead bodies and absently came up with a new drinking game while he was at it. He'd seen many the abandoned, attacked, or brutally-went-wrong-everyone-died-the-rogue-VI-killed-us scientific facility in his day, and as a Spectre he'd caused most of them. It was a good run. He figured for every dead body that he spied that he _hadn't_ killed, drink. Hell, for everyone he killed there'd be a drink too. Why not?

The next room was dark and mysterious and Miranda had something nosy to add: " _Bloody—Commander, there's several mechs on your way! Aim for the heads, and get behind those crates!_ "

"Was that an order?" He growled under his breath but nonetheless expertly clambered behind some convenient crates. He absently wondered why a medical facility had crates lying around. Really, there wasn't any logical reason. Sometimes, he swore the universe just went out of its way to make no goddamn sense.

Three LOKI mechs, nothing special. They fired, Shepard fired back. He had the better aim.

He found himself some stairs up and sprinted up them, eager to make his way out of the strange facility he'd woken up in and get some answers from 'Miranda Lawson' in person. But just his luck, her radio began to crap out by the time he got up the steps.

" _Shepard, you're doing gr—_ (crackle crackle) _—mechs descending in. Make your way t—_ (crackle crackle)— _get to the shuttles! I'll see if I can—_ (crackle crackle)—"

Shepard got sick of the radio and turned it off, somewhat happy to be rid of Miranda's overbearing presence. He poked his head into a nearby office and found a bunch of personal logs, in addition to a wall safe (which he happily discovered was full of credits, which he merrily robbed) and more thermal clips. He still couldn't comprehend why the med bay he'd been in didn't have any, considered the rest of the station was loaded, no pun intended.

He found from the logs that Miranda was in charge of Project Lazarus, which was the program that had brought him to life. Shepard had no idea why he was brought back to life, where he was, or for what purpose, but he did found out that a bald someone named Wilson didn't like Miranda – but more importantly, this Wilson was obviously an experienced medical practitioner as he had some scotch hidden in his desk, which the Commander happily plundered. (It helped with the insufferable migraine he had.)

He left Wilson's office pleasantly buzzed and less miserable than he had entered, and made his leisurely way out the only door he could exit from.

Suddenly there was a battle – a bare walkway with little to no cover and a black man in a skintight suit randomly shooting at several LOKI mechs across the way. Shepard stared at the strange little man for a bit before rushing over to help, sliding over as soon as there was a break in fire and crouching to lean against the thigh-high plexi-glass.

Because he was now clinically drunk, Shepard was unable to come up with a decent introduction, and so grinned manically and greeted, "Boo."

The black man's eyes widened in recognition. "Shepard? What the hell-?" He shook his head in disbelief. "If Miranda's got you up and running, things are worse than I thought."

Shepard nodded sagely. "Ah, you're with Miranda." Suddenly sensing an opportunity to do something badass, the commander stood up and shot one of the enemy mech's heads off. This mech was, unfortunately, replaced with another. He cursed loudly and crouched back down to the black guy's level, who just stared at him.

"Let's take care of these guys and then we can play Q&A," the man told him, "since I imagine you have some questions."

And so they did.

Or rather, the black guy (whose name was, unfortunately, Jacob Taylor) happened to be a biotic so he gave gravity the finger and yanked the mechs into the air with a mass effect field while Shepard shot at them with drunken precision.

"Right," Jacob huffed when they were all finished, "so somebody hacked all the mechs here and is attacking for no reason. It's a damn nightmare. Five minutes I was going to get some shut-eye and them BAM, bunch of explosions! I'm thinkin' we should get down to the shuttles, because—"

"Cut the shit," Shepard said abruptly. "You seem nice and all those things but the last thing I remember is dying and then waking up in a non-alcoholic med-bay. Talk about a goddamn nightmare."

Jacob sighed plaintively. "Yeah, Cerb—I mean, uh, this place is like that. They got all these bullshit regulations about alcohol and pants. It sucks."

"What happened to my ship?" Shepard inquired. "And my crew? Why are you wearing spandex? Why the hell am I not dead? That's kind of the big one here. God help you if you say magic or zombies."

Jacob inhaled and exhaled briefly and then took a deep breath: "Your ship was totaled after it was attacked by another vessel, by which I mean it exploded, your crew are fine and almost all survived except for some lower crewman and Navigator Pressly, I wear this jumpsuit because it's regulation and Miranda Lawson loves her some fine regulation, and you're not dead because we at the Lazarus Project don't like death and, under the direction of Miranda Lawson used every billions and trillions of dollars to acquire single scrap of modern science and pseudo-science to bring beat the hell out of death and bring you back, exactly the way you were before you died."

Shepard processed this in his slow, buzzed mind. "So am I a clone? Cybernetics? A Cylon? Is my back going to start blinking red lights every time I get it on?"

Jacob shook his head. "Nope. You're you, through and through. Uh, although maybe there was some cybernetics, I don't really know. Not the one to ask," he admitted with a sheepish shrug. "First time I saw you, you was all meat and tubes, so who knows. Miranda would probably know."

"Nah," Shepard scoffed, "she's probably dead. I was just talking to her on the radio before I ran into you and she cut off, saying something about mechs and shuttles and how great I was. I wasn't really paying attention. I got drunk somewhere along the way."

" _WHAT?_ " Jacob cried, infuriated for all the wrong reasons. "Those cracker bastards told me this facility was _non-alcoholic!_ "

"I kept saying that too but the scotch I found said differently. Or it did, after I downed the whole bottle."

" _ **Aw, come on**_!"

"What was that you said about shuttles?" Shepard reminded politely.

Jacob grumbled about regulations and stomped off in the general direction of where the shuttles probably were and John Shepard followed, humming a jaunty tune to himself.

The two continued on through the strange and foreign facility up some stairs and through more nondescript, gray, utilitarian rooms full of dead bodies and random mech corpses. At some point or another (Shepard had stopped paying attention, figuring none of it was important anyway) a man suddenly came in on the radio.

" _Come in, anyone, come in!_ " The radio crackled as a crackly voice known as Wilson issued out. " _This is, uh, engineer Wilson, is anyone alive? Anyone? Come on, the mechs aren't that good at their jobs!_ Someone _has to be alive! Anyone at all?_ "

Shepard and Jacob exchanged long glances. "Should we answer?" Jacob wondered aloud.

"I just want to know how it's coming in on _my_ radio," Shepard bitterly spat, "because it's been off for a while now."

Taylor activated his orange holographic omni-tool and pushed several meaningless holo-buttons. "This is Jacob, Wilson," he said into the radio. Shepard grumbled in the corner about uppity Australians and the lack of good alcohol and decent doctors. "Where are you?"

" _Jacob, right,_ " Wilson sighed in relief. " _I'm in Server Room B. Hurry! There's mechs closing in on my position!_ "

"What the hell's a Server Room?" Shepard wondered. "Is that really a separate room you asses keep your servers in, or is that just a fancy term for Slave Quarters?"

"We're coming!" Jacob vowed, still not listening or just oblivious. "Remember your penis, man – don't do anything lame!"

" _HURRY!_ "

"Seriously, what is it? Is it just a glorified janitor's closet?"

Shepard took charge and the two men made their way through the endless hallways of the nameless prelude facility before stumbling upon a red-lit room helpfully labeled Server Room B. Wilson was sprawled across the floor with a pistol in his hand and his leg was bleeding profusely. There were several dead fellow "engineers" in the same uniform Wilson was in, but there were no signs of mechs, at least on Wilson's side of the room.

"AGH!" The bald doctor-man-engineer-guy replied. "I'm a-comin', Elizabeth!"

"You shut the **hell** up," Commander Shepard ordered and snatched a hunk of medi-gel from a first-aid kit conveniently located on the wall. He slapped it on Wilson's head in an effort to get Wilson to shut about his wounds, since after just discovering he'd been brought back to life by a bunch of (probably) cultists, he wasn't exactly in the mood to deal with people whining about life-threatening wounds.

Wilson was up and running' in no time due to medi-gel's magical effects, and thanked the Commander profusely for the Spectre's minimal and misguided efforts. "How'd you get shot?" Shepard had to ask.

"Th-the mechs, of course," Wilson said too quickly.

Shepard was too drunk to really notice the quickness of that statement so he just shrugged it off. "Fine with me. Let's get to the shuttles alr—"

Oh, Fate, ever the fickle mistress! Fate has this thing, where it interrupted people at the worst of times. And so, at that time, several mechs entered through the opposite door and started firing at everyone and everything randomly. The three men hid behind some random debris while the mechs fired endlessly at everything that looked suspicious, which unfortunately for them included more explosive canisters. Which, of course exploded them to bits.

"Huh," Jacob stated.

"Problem solved, I guess," Wilson added with a shrug.

Shepard glared at the mech corpses. He didn't like interruptions. "As I was _saying_ before that _rude_ _interruption_ , we should make our way to the shuttles."

"Wait," Jacob interrupted, and Shepard glared at him ineffectually, "this shit is getting tight."

"What?" John Shepard blinked scratched his buzz-cut. "No it isn't. Were you even there for that last bit where the mechs _blew themselves up?_ "

Jacob went on, totally ignoring the commander: "I think Shepard oughta know who we're working for now. At least have a name to blame, right?"

"Really?" Wilson snorted sarcastically. "We're doing this now? With rampant, murdering mechs on the loose? Whatever, Jacob, it's your ass that gets kicked when you piss off the boss, not mine."

Jacob Taylor turned to Commander Shepard and proceeded with a lengthy pause which would have been dramatic, had anyone else been involved in that pause. "The people we work for," Jacob said, "the organization behind Project Lazarus, the project that resurrected you under Miranda's direction … is **_Cerberus._** "

There was another lengthy pause that was less dramatic. "Yeah," said Shepard slowly, "I know."

"…What?"

"I gathered that from the Cerberus logo on your spandex lapel," Shepard replied and pointed to the ominous yellow logo that Jacob, apparently, had forgotten about. "Also the giant Cerberus logos every fifty feet. Plus the Cerberus logo on this gun. And on the ass of my armor," he also helpfully pointed out, much to the chagrin of Wilson and Jacob. "You people aren't exactly subtle."

Wilson began muttering about something or other in angry undertones and Jacob scratched his shaved black head. "So… that's it? You're not curious? You don't have any questions?"

"You assume I care, Jacob," Shepard stated bluntly, having a miraculous epiphany in his inebriant mind. "You said something earlier about being a security officer, or if you didn't than I made that up, but I assume that you don't know or are too stupid to know any of the things I want answers to. Like, what Cerberus, the genocidal terrorist organization, wants with me – since I haven't technically been a terrorist since I left Earth, not that there's any record of that and furthermore I don't know what you're talking about – why is Cerberus involved in bringing _me_ back to life, of all people, and why they're suddenly philanthropists when I've known only murder and treachery and death and Thresher Maws and incompetent villainy at their hands. I wiped out plenty of Cerberus projects back in my day and I know enough about you all to realize you're not big on forgive-and-forget, so obviously there are many questions I have, but based off of the time I've known ya, short time though that may be," he added quickly, "I can gather that you're definitely a helper, but not the kind of helper _I need_. Mainly … you're dumb and underpaid, I suppose is my big point here," the commander finally concluded.

"True dat," Jacob grinned. "That shit's way above my pay grade. I guess people change? Tell ya what, we can take you to the Illusive Man after we're done with this station and he can answer all your questions, Shepard."

The commander laughed uproariously, if he had found some kind of great, inexplicable, drunken joke in all of that. "Please," Shepard laughed, "call me Shepard."

Jacob eyed the man warily with some confusion. "Uh, okay."

John Shepard clutched his head and shook it violently, feeling a bit of the ole headache coming on. "There's a chance I might be a little … way drunk right now."

"Wha—how?" Wilson stuttered. "Didn't you wake up just ten minutes ago? Didn't he wake up ten minutes ago?" He asked Jacob. He turned back to the undead commander. "How are you _drunk?_! You weren't even conscious!"

"Eh, I found some scotch in one of the offices."

"BULLSHIT!" Jacob roared, stamping his booted, spandex-clad feet. "DAMN REGULATIONS!"

Wilson then realized what scotch and which office Shepard was referring to, much to his dismay. "My booze!" He crowed mournfully. "My precious booze!"

"That was _your_ scotch? Right, so what was that about shuttles and finding Miranda?"

Jacob snapped his fingers. "Right! Miranda! What happened to her, anyway?"

Shepard shrugged. "She said something about shuttles and being overwhelmed by mechs before being cut off. Didn't I tell you?"

"No!" Jacob gasped, bringing his hands to his face in sudden despair. "She's in trouble! We have to help her!"

"Could've sworn I told you," Shepard mused.

"She's fine," Wilson said wryly, "she was only supposed to be in D-wing, the place with the majority of the mechs, right? And even if she isn't fine, she's not here with us right now, so there's a chance that she's behind this attack."

"Please," Shepard laughed, whacking Wilson in the back of the head absently, sending the bald man stumbling due to Shepard's enhanced soldier-strength. "I'm _drunk_ , not stupid. Miranda's a woman, she can't be behind this. Women are too incompetent."

Jacob whistled at that. " _Dayum_ , boy, she better not hear you say that!"

"What could she possibly do? Whine at me? Take me shoe-shopping? She's a woman," Shepard rolled his eyes. "Either way, she woke me up and ordered me around this facility like a dog before her radio copped out, and she wouldn't do all that if she had hacked the mechs and was trying to kill me. Sort of the opposite of that, really."

Wilson shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably, leaning against the wall in an attempt to be nonchalant. "Okay, so, maybe she isn't behind this," he grudgingly consented, "but either way, we're here, and she's not. And if she's anywhere it'll be at the shuttles."

"Right," Jacob nodded. "I mean, I'm worried, but Miranda can take care of herself. A small army of mechs ain't gonna drop her. Let's get to the shuttles."

"Finally," the zombie commander muttered.

The way to the shuttles was mech-full and perilous but the two men and the tipsy ex-Spectre managed to make it to there mostly without incident. There was a minor problem involving a map-malfunction, wherein Mr. Taylor got so criminally lost that he ruptured a hole in the space-time continuum and duplicated himself infinitely, but that – like most problems – was solved easily by a shot to the head.

"What an adventure," Wilson sighed wistfully.

Shepard nodded in agreement. "Couldn't have said it better myself."

"I just wish I remembered any of it," Jacob frowned. "Damn time paradoxes and their fugue amnesia!"

"Then it's too bad for you we'll never speak of it again," said the commander.

"I suppose so," Jacob said mournfully.

"Meanwhile, this station is going to blow right the hell up," Wilson reminded them. "Let's get on a shuttle and cheese it, pronto-like."

Shepard had pretty much entirely sobered up by the point they finally managed to get their asses to the shuttles, which he is why he didn't giggle and snort with surprise when the door to the shuttle bay opened on its own and a femme fatale in white shot Wilson in the chest without pretense.

Jacob gasped. "Willie! What the hell are you doing!"

"Shooting Wilson, obviously," the woman reported blandly and shot the bald man several times. She put her gun away eventually and turned to the distraught Jacob. "Wilson betrayed us all and is a Cerberus scapegoat by regulation 1156 subsection-B, detailing the labeling of scapegoats. He hacked the mechs and is responsible for the deaths of everyone in this situation, including himself."

"How do you know that?" Jacob demanded, nostrils flaring in suspicion.

"Because," the Aussie spat icily, hands on hips, " _I_ didn't do it, _you're_ too incompetent, and Shepard was comatose, and that covers all the people that are still alive or matter remotely."

Shepard, on instinct, had whipped out his own gun and pointed it at the woman's pretty head. He blinked, recognizing her as the brunette Australian that he'd seen when he woke up for the first time and who had jammed him full of sedatives. This was Miranda Lawson, the woman that had led him through the facility. She'd proven to essentially be an ally, so he lowered his weapon, but didn't put it away. Miranda rolled her lavender eyes at him.

"Really, Commander?" She said rhetorically.

He thought of a one-liner for this situation but refrained. "How long were you standing behind that door anyway?"

Ms. Lawson shrugged. "A few minutes. I wanted to catch Wilson by surprise. Getting to the point, we should leave. One, this facility is about to explode, and two, my boss wants to see you."

"You mean the Illusive Man?" Shepard asked dryly. Miranda frowned at this. "Yeah, I know you're Cerberus."

Miranda shook her head and turned to Jacob, a sad smile on her face. "Ahh, Jacob," she mused, "conscience getting the better of you?"

"Yeah," Jacob grinned. "Actually, no, because the Commander already knew. But I still figured lyin' to a brother isn't the best way to get him to join our cause."

Miranda looked at the recently deceased Commander in surprise. "Is Jacob making up stories again or is he telling the truth?"

"The latter," Shepard admitted. "Cat's out of the bag, as they say. Oh, wait, are you telling me this was supposed to be a secret?"

"It's the logos," Jacob told his fellow Cerberus operative. "He totally caught on. I told you we should've taken them off but noo _ooo_ —"

"They're regulation!" Miranda cried. "Furthermore, _shut up._ Well, since you already seem to know everything, commander," she turned back to the commander dripping with sarcasm, "is there anything else you want to know?"

"I assume you're the director of this project," Shepard said politely.

"Yes, I am, or rather was, in charge of the Lazarus Project," Miranda Lawson informed. "The entire purpose of the Project was to bring you back to life using whatever means our extensive bank accounts could afford, which included some advanced cybernetics, bio-engineering, humanistic pseudo-science, and a lot of praying. The usual. You were the only subject. I devoted two years of my life into this research, into you. "

"Fair enough," Shepard shrugged. "What do you want with me?"

"I'm not the one to ask. That would be the Illusive Man, my boss. He poured virtually unlimited resources and funds into this project, in order to bring you back to life _exactly_ as you were before."

Shepard shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably, and then finally put away his pistol. He wasn't so certain he wanted the answer to this last question but he _had_ to know. "Just one final question and then we can blow this joint: were you the one who took my measurements for this armor?"

"Of course," Miranda breezed. "Who did you think it was? Wilson? Please. I know everything about you, Commander. I did rebuild you, after all."

He eyed her warily. " _Everything?_ " Miranda nodded and folded her arms across her rather _large_ chest, which Shepard was amazingly just beginning to notice. Add to that, her black and white cat-suit was just perfect in all the right places, including the ass-place. Was this … Cerberus regulation? Did all the women dress up like this? Or was this just Miranda Lawson's personal taste? Either way, Shepard decided he could live with it. He kicked Wilson's corpse good-naturedly and clapped his hands. "Sounds good. Where's the shuttle? I've had enough of this place to last a lifetime."

"Or two, in your case," Miranda chuckled merrily, or it would've been merrily if Miranda Lawson did things like chuckle merrily. As it turned out, she did not, and it came out as kind of comedic deadpan observation that confused the two men around her because of the total lack of comedy.

Shepard glared at her vehemently. "Dammit, I didn't just come back from beyond the grave to hear bad jokes from the kind of sick bastards that have med-bays without alcohol _or_ guns."

"Damn regulations," Jacob muttered under his breath.

"That's absurd and you know it, and I refuse to discuss this with you of the grounds of absurdity," Miranda said firmly, stamping her heeled foot.

John Shepard shook his head in disgust. "I knew that Cerberus was full of monsters, but by God, you people take the cake. You take that evil cake you eat it whole."

* * *

Commander John Shepard, N7 marine, first human Spectre, proud fiend of slavers, casual drinker, grudging savior of the galaxy, professional armed lunatic and notorious bamf, was having a surprisingly friendly discussion with the Illusive Man, the self-proclaimed Most Illusive Terrorist in the Galaxy, the subject of heated intergalactic debate since humanity's induction into the galactic community, the nameless face behind Cerberus, self-promoting zillionaire, and notorious virtual skeeball champion. The Illusive Man was, of course, also notorious and very villainous on the side, but that goes without saying.

The Illusive Man was currently enjoying a smoke and was rubbing it in Commander Shepard's face. John Shepard didn't actually mind because they were having a virtual communication and Shepard couldn't actually smell the smoke, but he envied the Illusive Man nonetheless. What he wouldn't give for a smoke right now. He was, however, absolutely furious at the whiskey in the Illusive Man's left hand, which the head of Cerberus was sipping at idly why he and the ex-Spectre had their delightful conversation. That drink was just _pushing it._ God _damn_ it what Shepard wouldn't give for a damn drink right then.

"So, how was the trip?" The Illusive Man politely asked.

"Well enough," Shepard replied. "Miranda kept pestering me with questions about my past. I thought it strange because women usually spend more time asking me about my feelings and less about the shit I actually do on a regular basis. I had enough by the time she asked about Akuze, which incidentally I blame you guys for. No offense."

"None taken." The Illusive Man shrugged. "I'd say that it's in the past and we should move forward but honestly, I don't blame you. I can also say that mistakes were made, but you wouldn't buy that, would you?"

"No."

"Then we're on the same page. But we're going to move past it nonetheless because right now is more important. Also we just resurrected you and that makes-us-even-no-backsies-ha-ha-I-win!"

"But—"

"Ah-ah," the tyrant billionaire shook his finger back and forth, "I said no backsies! While this has been a delightful chat," the Illusive Man said politely, sipping at his whiskey while Shepard inwardly fumed at the sight, "we should probably get down to business. I hope your new body is treating you well—"

"Yeah, I noticed a few upgrades on it," Shepard remarked, scratching at his neck. "Hope you didn't replace anything really important."

"Of course not," the Illusive Man said too quickly. "Except for a few pesky things you didn't need. Like your morality, for instance."

"Meh," Shepard shrugged, oozing nonchalance, "I wasn't using it anyway."

"So you mean to tell me you didn't save the galaxy because you considered it the right thing to do?"

"What kind of hero do you take me for? I was the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance go-to guy. Galaxy-saving is all I get paid to do. I had to do _something._ Plus, Saren was trying to kill me, so I had to kill him first. Fair is fair." Shepard paused. "I guess you could say I was doing the moral thing when I saved the Council too but to be frank, I only did that to shut Liara up."

"And when you saved the Rachni Queen, you—"

"That asari knows how to nag a man."

The Illusive Man considered this information, mulled it over, and smoked quietly on his cigarette. "Well, since you weren't using your morality in the first place, I doubt you'll miss it. It's a better option than what Ms. Lawson suggested. If you're curious, take it up with her. Now, as I was saying, I hope your new body is treating you well because you're going to need it in tip-top shape soon. Down to the matter at hand, we've got a situation, and you're the only one in the galaxy who can help us."

"Heard that story before," Shepard snorted. "They come to me, they all do – how do you guys find me?"

"Wasn't hard," the Illusive Man admitted. "Follow the smell of vodka and guns and we're there. Commander, a lot has happened while you've been 'asleep.' Entire human colonies have gone missing in the span of months. Worst yet, the Council is doing everything between jack and shit about it."

Shepard considered this information, mulled it over, and quietly stroked his five o'clock shadow, wishing that he had a cigarette or a drink on hand. "Entire human colonies? How do they go missing?"

"We suspect abduction," said the Illusive Man. "But there's no evidence. No bodies, no signs of struggle, no survivors. Everyone is simply gone. Whatever is really happening, the Reapers are behind it."

"Reapers, eh? Those ole' space squids. What have they been up to in the past two years?"

"Celebrating your death," the Illusive Man said dryly. "They sent an invite to the Turian Hierarchy to the 'Shepard's Dead Party,' but the turians declined on the grounds that the death-cake wasn't dextro-amino-acid friendly."

Shepard grunted. "I never liked those filthy bastards anyway. Except for Garrus, I mean."

"That was called a joke, Shepard."

"No, no, I wasn't joking."

"That's not … yes, that's fine. The point you've been distracting us from is that entire human colonies are being abducted due to some nefarious Reaper plan."

"And why are you involved?" the commander accused, tapping his armored foot ominously. "This isn't Cerberus' usual. From what I understand of your organization, you're a bunch of pro-human terrorists bent on—ohh, I see your point," he cut himself off and winked. "Pro-human. Human colonists going missing. Gotcha."

"It's more than that," the Illusive Man said darkly and finished off his whiskey. "Call Cerberus what you will, but we do what we have to do to get the job done, and we do it with what we've got. You're the best humanity has, Shepard. You stood for humanity at a key point in time – you stood for the _galaxy._ You're more than a soldier, you're a symbol, something that even the Council races can get behind. The Reapers are bent on harvesting all life in the galaxy, and that includes humanity for some reason. And for some reason, possibly a vendetta because you destroyed Sovereign, they're now targeting humanity. Cerberus is the last and the first line of defense humanity has, and it just so happens that what's in humanity's best interest is now in the best interest of everyone else we hate in the galaxy. We have to grin and bear it. It's been a tough call, but we've come through and decided to pitch in. Hence, your life."

Shepard rolled his eyes. "Nice sermon. I'm suddenly _so_ sympathetic. Yes, yes, it's been a trying time for terrorists."

"You have no idea," the most Illusive man in the galaxy sighed sadly, "fortunately, we have a plan."

"I don't do well with plans," Shepard warned. "For the record, that thing on Ilos was totally spur of the moment."

"Impressive, but irrelevant. Now is the time for plans … nefarious, illusive plans," the billionaire cackled.

"Enough cackling and chicanery, cut to the chase."

"But of course. You see, we, or rather _I_ , need you to go the colony Freedom's Progress. It's the most recent colony to go silent. I want you to search around and find some answers."

"Why haven't you done this before?"

"I was drinking. I wasn't in the mood. I was banging an asari matriarch. I was busy. I was committing a crime against nature. Take your pick."

Shepard thought about this. "Well, I pick the first one, because I like drinking, but that didn't answer my question. You could've raised an entire army with the money you used to raise me. Also, Cerberus has done nothing but ruin my life, up until the point that you saved my life. That's not exactly any form of karmic balance whatsoever. What's to stop me from rebelling, taking my new body, and mobilizing the Alliance?"

The Illusive Man smirked back a cackle and put out his cigarette on the arm of his chair. "The Alliance was devastated by what you pulled off on the Citadel, remarkable though it may have been. Cerberus was under different management before then – the Illusive Man is hardly immortal, and I had a maniacal predecessor. Not to suggest that I'm any less maniacal or power-crazed, I'm just taking our insanity in a different direction – i.e. focusing it into a beam of pure hatred in the form of you, and pointing that beam straight at the Reapers in an effort to survive galactic extinction. Furthermore, you owe us big time, buddy."

"Still didn't answer the question," Shepard reminded pointedly.

"That was more than one question, that was several questions, and I don't have all the answers Shepard. The whole point here is that you need to go to Freedom's Progress with Operative Lawson and Operative Taylor to investigate and I will say almost anything to get you to do just that. All I can say is that you're a one-man army, and you should be all that humanity needs. The Reapers may or may not know fear, but you destroyed one of them – that had to have got their attention. You're the only one that truly knows the threat that they bring."

"Not true," Shepard pointed out. "Liara knows too. We shared minds a few times during the hunt for Saren. She's more capable than I am of analyzing the Reaper threat because she's an asari."

"You're the only _human_ that knows the threat they bring," the Illusive Man corrected.

" _Yes,_ _that's_ definitely more like the Cerberus I know." Shepard sighed, finally realizing what this was all coming to. "Tell you what, throw in a mini-bar and I'm in."

"But of course." With a tap of a holographic button, the virtual communication between the zombie-commander and the Monopoly-man tyrant ended. The Illusive Man was left alone in his "office" with nothing but the shimmering view of the star outside that he owned to comfort him. The artificial filters on the sun began to shift and change colors like a mood ring. He got out of his chair and lit another cigarette, inhaling and exhaling as the calm washed over him. Hundreds of years of knowledge and research of the harmful effects of drugs, alcohol, and other addictive substances, and yet that didn't stop their production or their sales to every species in the galaxy except for quarians and volus. It was enough to make a man proud of his species.

" ** _Eeeexcellent_** ," the Illusive Man smirked and tapped his fingers together as he began to channel Monty Burns. "I think this calls for a drink."


	2. The Veetor Is Manifest

 

* * *

 

Commander John Shepard, N7 marine, first human Spectre, proud fiend of slavers, casual drinker, armed lunatic, etc. was most certainly _not_ drunk, and thank _you_ for _asking,_ Miranda. Because nobody asked _you._

"I didn't ask, I was telling you. If you're drunk, that means you're a liability, and I don't tolerate liabilities."

Shepard rolled his eyes. "Well, I didn't see any water on the shuttle, did you, Ms. Lawson? And as for that tolerating bit, I'm not sure you have a choice in the matter. That mini-bar was all the work of your boss, so thank him for it."

Jacob laughed raucously from his seat in the Cerberus shuttle and loaded a thermal clip into his shotgun. "I can't believe the Illusive Man put a mini-bar on a shuttle."

The commander grinned from _his_ seat and adjusted his gloves. "If Cerberus weren't so evil, I'd say this is the best job I've ever had."

"Speaking of the job," the White Witch spat icily from _her_ unfriendly seat, "we have a _job_ to do. We can either do it, or talk about doing it, but only one actually accomplishes anything and the other is a waste of time and effort."

"It's the first one, right?" Shepard guessed. "It's always that one."

Miranda Lawson stared at Commander John Shepard with something between desperation and frustration, combined with an overtone of sadness and a skosh of nutmeg and cinnamon. Or hate and disbelief, Shepard was discovering that it was hard to tell with Ms. Lawson. But he was far from an idiot – he knew that he was starting to get under her skin in the bad way, and that wasn't the way he wanted. "I'm just teasing," he assured her in his best calming voice. "Relax."

"I cannot relax," she said through grit teeth, her accent getting harsher by the second, "because I cannot tell when you're joking and when you're being serious. It's impossible, and you're impossible."

"Is that your way of complimenting my straight face? Gracias," he grinned, "it comes naturally. As a plus, I'm very good at poker. We should play sometime, you know, when everything's not in immediate peril."

Miranda didn't dignify that with a response. Except for a flustered, "no, I don't think so. And Cerberus is _not_ evil. We have only humanity's best interests at heart!"

Jacob frowned at his compatriot operative. "That was a bit delayed, Miranda. You a'ight?"

She only scowled at him. Shepard then remembered something. "What was that about doing a job and then talking about it and wastes of time?" Miranda turned her icy glare to Shepard who shrugged it off and jumped out of the shuttle as it touched ground, feet hitting hard concrete.

They had landed on the former human colony of Freedom's Progress, the most recent colony to go dark, according to the Illusive Man. There were no known survivors, no clues, no signs of conflict, and most importantly, no way to track who or what bastards had done this. And in truth, Shepard wasn't exactly drunk. At least that's not the way he would've put it. The microscopic bottles of asari liquor were delicious, but they were hardly enough to get him good and roaring drunk. A result, he carefully stifled his urges to provoke Miranda and sing songs and his more ridiculous feelings of joy and blatant sexism safely away where no one could be privy to them and took out his assault rifle. If he was lucky, his aim would only be slightly impaired. Just to check, he shot a random wall a few times. And by a few times it is, of course, meant 'fifty.'

Jacob blinked. "Damn, did that wall kill your family?"

Shepard shrugged and tested out his scope a bit, noting in his head that he didn't get dazed and dizzy from the zoom at all. Drunk. Hah! Miranda was full of it. "For all I know it could've. I was just testing something."

"Testing if the wall killed your family?"

Shepard didn't like the word 'family,' nor did he like talking about that word, nor did he like Jacob's strange brand of stupid. "Mr. Taylor."

"Commander?"

"That thing that you do, when you talk? I need you to stop doing that for the duration of this mission, unless it's _really_ important." Shepard paused when he remembered who he was talking to. "As I'm not sure I can trust you to gauge whether or not something is _really_ important, if you have something to say to me, please say it to Ms. Lawson first and she can then field your message through to me."

"Aye ,aye!" Jacob cried with a hearty salute.

"VI is not in my job description, Shepard," Miranda muttered sarcastically.

"It is now," he told her. "Enough chit-chat, let's move out. This wall is finished."

The three commandos made their way into the colony, passing through empty rooms and abandoned homes. The entire place gave off an eerie feeling that Shepard was having a hard time describing, but if pressed would call "susurrus," not because that made any sense in any context whatsoever as susurrus is a noun, but because Shepard liked that word and was disappointed that it didn't get the attention that it deserved.

They had just entered one particular building which was full of empty chairs at empty tables and once again made Shepard feel like breaking into song, which he most certainly did not do, as that would utterly ruin his reputation.

"It's like...like…" Jacob was struggling with words and had also forgotten Shepard's no-talky-from-Jacob policy earlier, but Shepard excused it the once. "Like they all just got up in the middle of dinner and never came back. What the hell happened?"

"More importantly," Miranda cut in, "why did it happen? We need answers."

"And payback," Jacob vowed.

They continued on into the colony until fate had another spasm and sent a few mechs their way. It was unexpected, but in a strange way Shepard completely anticipated the event. "What's with all the Shepard-hating mechs?" He wondered aloud as he gunned two LOKI mechs down and hid behind yet another conveniently placed crate. He ordered his two subordinates to more tactical positions, as the two Cerberus operatives were just dumbly standing about looking confused and vaguely shooting at whatever was lying around, which is strange considering how competent Miranda had seemed earlier. He supposed maybe they just needed direction, is all. He switched to incendiary ammo and put those thoughts out of his head.

"Three FENRIS mechs at three o'clock!" Miranda suddenly shrieked and Shepard turned to a previously unseen hole in the logic of space-time that included an entirely new set of stairs and crates and was also full of mechs. One biotic pull and a warp later and there were two less. Shepard switched to his shotgun. It was time to get personal.

The mechs didn't last long, needless to say.

Miranda Lawson wasn't happy with this turn of events. She pouted a bit. "Those mechs should've recognized us as friendlies," she told no one in particular. "Someone must have hacked them."

"They're _always_ hacked," Shepard responded with an eye roll. "Don't you know anything? There's always a downside. VI goes crazy, security's been hacked, rogue AI, everyone was kidnapped, bad guy commits suicide. There's always something."

"Still…"

"Why do you think I carry a doctor's arsenal everywhere I go?"

Miranda thankfully ignored that comment. "I suppose my point here is that this place is supposed to be abandoned. I can't imagine who or what was left behind, but we're definitely not alone here."

"If it's zombies or those geth husks," Jacob leaned in close and whispered to her, "I'm outta here."

"Whatever," Lawson dismissed and pushed the black man away.

"Forward that message to Shepard since I'm not supposed to talk to him," he added. "It's _really_ important."

"No, it isn't," she muttered and sighed the long-suffering sigh of she who has suffered much at the hands of the fate.

"So, does Jacob have any messages for me yet?" Shepard asked her unhelpfully. Miranda only responded with a frosty glare. It was starting to become her default expression.

After wandering aimlessly through courtyards while Shepard shamelessly rifled through all the missing colonists' belongings for creds, and of course after destroying several more rounds of mechs, the ex-Spectre and the two Cerberus commandos stumbled across a room that was randomly full of quarians.

Shepard's initial reaction was confusion, followed by recognition, followed by more confusion, regarding one _specific_ quarian that had no feasible reason to be standing in front of him. A part of him was relieved at seeing a friendly face (so to speak, no one knew if quarians had faces because of their environmental suits), but that part was quashed by the confusion.

Luckily for him, that quarian in particular was equally confused: "Wha—Shepard?"

"Tali?" he blurted.

A moment of awkward silence ensued.

Shepard then realized that he had his gun pointed instinctively at the other quarians in the room that weren't Tali, of which there were four or so. One of them was obnoxious and had a shotgun and was glancing back between the commander and his crew of three with something that would've been described as bewilderment, if only Shepard could read quarian body language. It was just too damn hard, with all of them stuck in those damn suits.

Shepard lowered his gun quietly, figuring Tali at least knew him well enough not to give the order to shoot him in the face no matter how much of a jerkass he may have been in the past (although he did always have a bit of a soft spot for her, since she was an irrevocably nice and optimistic person with a funny accent, and that was rather charming). He motioned for Miranda and Jacob to do the same, and Jacob automatically (and thankfully wordlessly) complied while Miranda put hers down but didn't put it away. He couldn't blame her.

Tali'Zorah vas Neema was at a loss for words. She stuttered for a bit before realizing her squad was still pointing their weapons at one of her best friends. _Dead_ best friends. It was all very confusing, needless to say. "Prazza!" She barked to the obnoxious quarian with the shotgun behind her, "put those guns down!"

"I'm not taking any chances with _Cerberus operatives!_ " Prazza decried in a fit of paranoia and stupidly aimed his shotgun a bit more precisely.

Tali saw the Look cross Shepard's face and a sinking feeling grew in her gut. The Look didn't last very long but the fact that it made an appearance at all was ominous. Tali'Zorah had no idea how it was possible that he was standing here right in front of her, or even why he was here at all, or what the heck was going on anymore, but that Look was one she knew all too well. It was the Look that said, with one strange human facial expression, 'you're on ice thinner than a fingernail, son, and you're one inch away from me fuckin' your shit up to next Sunday.' Or that was how Chief Williams had described it to her once; she didn't really get it, figuring it was a human thing and probably out of her realm of understanding. It was apparently very similar to a batarian phrase she'd once heard that she had difficulty pronouncing, but understood it translated back into her native language as something like 'you're all doomed.'

"Tali'Zorah," Shepard began in that careful, stern, slow tone of his that all but screamed 'warning,' "you served on my ship and know how well I respond to threats."

Oh, she did. She remembered very vividly the last time someone had dared to threaten Commander John Shepard. The whole thing had been rather exciting, really:

* * *

**Hot Flashback Action Time!**

" _Like_ _ **hell**_ _we'll surrender!" The nameless human cultist screamed. "We'll kill you all!"_

" _Nope," Shepard informed him obligingly and obligingly proceeded to violently beat the hell everyone in the room that wasn't a friend of his or didn't owe him money. The shabang involved bullets, blood, and knives, and at one point Tali recalled that the three were combined for somewhat surreal effect that reminded her of an old gore-horror vid she'd seen back on the Flotilla once._

_Garrus Vakarian had to ask to no one in particular by the time it was all over, "Was that necessary?"_

" _No," Urdnot Wrex answered with the krogan equivalent of a smile, Tali couldn't tell – "but it was worth it."_

" _We're done here," Shepard announced, kicking aside one dead cultist. "I could use a drink right now."_

**Sexy Flashback End!**

* * *

By the time Tali was done with her funky flashback, Prazza had managed to get in another insult to Cerberus and Shepard's Look was starting to look like it was there to stay.

" **PRAZZA!** " Tali screamed, voice raising several octaves and startling everyone in the room, and began to feel like killing the quarian herself before her former commander could get to it. "You put those weapons down **NOW!** **"**

The quarian was obviously unused to hearing his leader get so worked up over something and so put down his weapons, albeit suspiciously, and his future (soon to be short) life silently thanked him.

Tali huffed angrily and looked back to Shepard, unsure of what to do or say. "Shepard," she murmured, unsure of what she was feeling. Obviously relief that he was standing in front of her, and yet … the Cerberus logos. What was going on? Was this really Shepard? How could she know? "Shepard, is it … really _you_?"

The commander folded his arms grumpily and stroked his chin in thought. "Damn, what's something only I would know …" He suddenly snapped his fingers and his expression brightened. "Got it – Tali, you remember that geth data we got after running that errand for Admiral Hackett, right? And you took a copy for your Pilgrimage? Did it help?"

All her suspicions about his identity promptly died. There was still the issue of Cerberus, but for the moment, she could be assured that this was definitely her old commander standing in front of her – alive, well, and most importantly _alive._ Spending two years thinking he was dead was just hell, plain and simple, and all that time and grief wouldn't just suddenly wash away, but it was definitely a start.

Tali smiled underneath her mask, not that anyone would ever see it. "Yes, it did," she said with a nod, the relief coming through in her voice. She turned to Prazza and her fellow quarians disappointedly. "This is undoubtedly Shepard, and you're lucky you all put those weapons down or I would've had to explain to the Fleet how Stupidity is a viable, natural cause of death."

Prazza was too stupid to get the insult, obviously. "Why is your old commander working for Cerberus?" He wondered. It was a really good question, one that was going to go unanswered, because Prazza was dumb.

"How'd you even know we were Cerberus?" Miranda demanded suspiciously.

"What?" Tali adjusted her hood and laughed a bit. "Are-are you joking? As if the logos weren't obvious enough, then you just confirmed it for us."

"Way to go, Miranda," Jacob laughed as the Australian gave everyone a pale imitation of Shepard's Look. "I told you the logos was a bad idea, but _nooooooo_ —"

"Jacob," Shepard warned, "now is quiet time." Jacob nodded and went back to being quiet like a good boy while the N7 turned to Tali and her quarian squad. To avoid talking to Prazza, who was clearly a challenged individual, he addressed Tali alone. "I'm not working for Cerberus, Tali, I'm working _with_ them. There's a large gap between the two. As for why I'm here, this is a human colony – human colonies all over the Terminus have been disappearing the same way this one seems abandoned. Since entire colonies of colonists don't just up and leave, not even with slavers to persuade them, nor do they leave so little evidence if they all randomly dropped dead or spontaneously combust, Cerberus, as a sadly pro-human terrorist organization, is interested in what happened here."

"That does not explain why you are here, though, Shepard," Tali said, a frown evident in her voice.

Shepard sighed wistfully and yearned inwardly for a stiff drink. "I'm here with these cultists because for the moment, there's a mini-bar back on the shuttle and our goals happen to coincide. They also resurrected me over the last two years and they're under the delusion that I owe them."

Jacob nudged Miranda in the ribs. "Hey! Tell Shepard I'm totally not a cultist!"

"Jacob and I are _not_ cultists," said Miranda icily. "And we did not _resurrect you._ We rebuilt you."

Shepard rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Same thing, Lawson."

"No, there's a significant difference. One is a legitimate scientific endeavor, and the other is something that only occurs if you're a member of some passé religious institution or are possessed by the insane belief that sorcery and _Galaxy of Fantasy_ are real and quantifiable mediums."

Shepard didn't want to pull Arthur C. Clark on her so he just crooned, "Whatever you say." He paused and turned back to Tali, who waited patiently throughout the entire exchange. "It was mostly the mini-bar, to be honest. Not to say that the missing colonists don't concern me. They don't, but I'm concerned anyway, just not for the same reasons Cerberus is. And I really was dead. God help anyone who makes a zombie joke," the zombie commander reminded everyone in the room with an evil eye.

"I wasn't planning to make a joke," Tali answered honestly. "What are zombies?"

"It's a human thing," Miranda cut in. "Don't worry about it. Shepard just explained why we are here, but why are you here, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya?"

"It's Tali'Zorah _vas Neema_ now," the quarian spat, "thank-you-very-much."

"Of course, my apologies," Miranda assured smoothly.

Tali gave a dignified 'harrumph' and folded her arms haughtily. "We are here because one of our own is missing as well – Veetor came here on Pilgrimage and we were sent to find him."

Shepard scratched his nose thoughtfully and leaned against the nearest wall. "That's not strange, a quarian coming to a human colony for a Pilgrimage?"

Tali shrugged. "We can choose wherever we'd like to go for our Pilgrimage, even if it is outlandish – I should be one to talk, though, since mine started with joining your crew, on a human ship no less. Regardless, we need to find him."

"And you're sure that he's still here? Why wouldn't he have disappeared with the other colonists?"

"I'm not sure about the second question," Tali answered in wavering uncertainty, "but he's definitely still here. He thoroughly reprogrammed all the mechs to attack on sight, and no one but a quarian could have done that. There was also the message he left us on the wall over there," Tali added with a gesture towards an illustrated nearby wall, "so that was helpful too."

Shepard squinted. The message said, in bluish-black blood or possibly squid ink, dripping down the walls, _THE VEETOR IS MANIFEST AND PROGRAMMED MECHS TO KILL YOU LOTS._

"What poor grammar," Miranda criticized.

"I don't know," Shepard frowned, but for something other than poor grammar, "if Wilson could hack all the mechs in a facility, how hard could it be? He made pyjacks look smart, with a capital 'smar.'"

And everyone ignored him. "We need to find Veetor," Miranda announced with finality.

"We're not working with Cerberus!" Prazza valiantly declared.

"Tali," Shepard said in the calmest and most rational voice anyone had ever heard, "I think your friend has made the fatal mistake of misunderstanding me. Namely the fact that if he speaks again, I'll shoot him in the kneecaps." Prazza gulped at the ex-Spectre's murderous, unwavering gaze.

"Don't bother," Tali said with an invisible mask-hidden eye-roll, "he's stupid."

"We'd be doing natural selection a favor."

"Nature gets along just fine without favors," Tali pointed out, "and besides, I do not want to have to write a nasty letter to his relatives about it."

Shepard sighed mournfully. Next time, though, whatever idiot that threatened him was going to get it so hard that they'd be killed _twice._ "Right. Veetor. Missing colonists. Priority. Mission."

"Thank you!" Miranda said earnestly.

Shepard wondered absently if maybe Miranda would like to play Jacob's quiet game too, but decided that muting his only competent companion wouldn't be in his best tactical interests, at least for the duration of this particular mission. "We'll split up into two teams to find Veetor," he told Tali, going into Officious-Shepard Mode, "keep radio contact. I'll see if we can't take care of the majority of the mechs left."

Tali nodded. "Will do. See you on the other side." She made an obscure hand motion to her quarian allies and Prazza and the others reluctantly trudged out one of the side-doors of the room, opposite the doorway Shepard would be taking. She turned back to look at him, and if Shepard had ever bothered to figure out a goddamn thing about quarian body language he probably would've picked up on something important right there, but as it were it just seemed to him that she was being weird and plucky as usual. _Same old Tali._ "Whatever the case," Tali said softly, "and whoever you're working with now … I'm glad you're back, Shepard."

He gave a veiled, snarky, lop-sided grin and swiftly pulled his assault rifle from his back. "Least that makes one of us."

The three commandos dashed out the door, guns at the ready and on the alert for any mechs. Tali alerted them to a squad of security drones headed their way as they exited one of the colonists' offices and they swiftly took care of the problem with a few overloads and a couple thermal clips.

It was after the security drone issue that the real trouble appeared – Tali, over the radio again:

" _Prazza and his squad have rushed on ahead!_ " She shouted into the radio, causing the three humans to flinch at her shrill tone.

"What have I said about yeell-lling," Shepard sing-songed, but Tali didn't listen:

" _I tried to tell them no but they wouldn't listen—_ "

"Aren't they your squad?" Shepard murmured under his breath. "Do quarians have authority issues or something?"

Tali continued frantically—" _They want to find Veetor and take him away before you get here! B-but Veetor reprogrammed a heavy mech and it's tearing Prazza's squad apart. Hurry, Shepard, we're past the loading bay!_ " And then she cut off.

Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob all shared a look, each one tinged with another emotion. Jacob's was trepidation, Miranda's was anger, and Shepard's was just pure exasperation.

"I hate idiots," the commander complained bluntly. "They really ruin my life."

"We should've expected this treachery," Miranda spat and stomped her heeled foot on the ground.

"Says the Cerberus operative who wanted to put a control chip in Commander Shepard's head," Shepard muttered.

"Quarians hold no love of Cerberus," Miranda said flatly, "it's not just us, there's a mutual distrust here. We shouldn't have agreed to work with them."

Shepard shook his head. "I can tell there's a story there, but I just don't care enough. The only reason this happened is because Tali isn't Sun Tzu, she's a techie. And Prazza was clearly a moron, and morons tend to do stupid things, it's their disease. Now hurry up, we've got a heavy mech to take down … apparently."

The two squabblers and blessedly quiet Jacob wormed their way, somehow, someway, to the docking area where Shepard took point and Tali opened the doors from a remote location. On the other side, the sounds of quarians being crushed and shot and mutilated to death by machinery gave way to the sight of the heavy YMIR mech that was, quite literally, tearing Prazza's squad apart.

The three got behind several conveniently located crates and shared the same looks they'd shared earlier. Shepard noticed that he was standing over Prazza's corpse, and the thought of it made him a little happy. Morons get as morons deserve. Sometimes, he really loved the way the universe worked.

"This is going to be one tough son of a bitch to take down," Miranda growled.

Shepard just shook his head. These poor, sad little amateurs. What did they know? What sort of people was Cerberus hiring these days? Were they all this underfunded? God, he could use a drink. "Jacob, you don't understand how warps work despite being a biotic, so you just sit tight and be quiet over in the corner there. Miranda, hit it with a few warps while I ready the grenade launcher." John Shepard reached behind his back for the said grenade launcher. He didn't altogether trust the device – he was far more used to hand grenades – but grenades are grenades, he decided, and as long as shit gets blown up it didn't matter.

The tactic was quite simple – Jacob even proved himself useful by disobeying Shepard's orders and firing at the thing to draw its attention – a useless endeavor, since his bullets were doing less damage than if he'd thrown pillows (pillows might have even confused the mech enough to blow itself up like those LOKI back on the Cerberus facility Shepard had woken up in – hey, anything was possible). It was still a useful distraction and Miranda's biotics were doing enough damage by themselves. Shepard had only to aim, aaaa _aaaaand—_

"Dammit!" He yelled and dashed to the side into a roll as the mech fired a missile at him. Who the hell armed these bastards with missiles? And what did these colonists need with heavy mechs anyway? Why would—

"Fuck-a-duck!" he shouted again as his inner theorizing was interrupted, and the mech fired its second projectile at him. Luckily, Shepard had managed to dodge behind yet another conveniently located crate, a crate that was surprisingly fire-retardant, so it all worked out fine.

Jacob began firing frantically at the thing again, preventing its shields from coming up, and Shepard, now actually pissed at that point, shot a grenade at its mechanical head.

"I hate mechs," he muttered as he watched the glorious explosion of the mech and put away the grenade launcher. He vaguely wondered if the Illusive Man could be persuaded to keep cigarettes on the shuttles, in addition to the mini-bar.

"Glad that's over," Miranda announced as the three rendezvoused around the exploded remains of the mech.

"I'm hungry," Shepard announced right back. "Don't suppose any of you have any food on you? Miranda, does Jacob have any food-related messages for me?"

Miranda Lawson responded only with an icy glare, which was _definitely_ her default expression now. Commander Shepard just sighed. "Had to ask. Explosions make me hungry. Let's hurry and find that quarian – I want to see if I can persuade your boss to include a mini-fridge on all the shuttles just for delicious snackables."

Jacob's eyes lit up at that and he slapped Miranda on the arm as an idea sprung upon his mind. She turned her icy glare to him instead, but apparently he was numb to it. "Ooh, tell the Commander to ask for a microwave too – I want me some tacquitos."

Miranda, _very_ reluctantly, turned back to Shepard. "Jacob says there should be a microwave on the shuttles as well," she informed in monotone.

Shepard blinked. "Ooh, for tacquitos you mean? That's a great idea!"

"Shoot me, stuff me, mount me," Miranda muttered under her breath and kicked the remains of the YMIR mech around to sate her recently-discovered fountain of undying rage. She wondered absently if Commander John Shepard had this effect on everyone, or if it was just her. She supposed it didn't matter because she ended up irritated either way, but if he had this effect on everyone, it was a wonder how he made it through the galaxy and saved anything at all. Her extensive research into his life didn't indicate he'd be this difficult, though she had been fully prepared for his drinking, his rampant, random sociopathic tendencies, and his sour personality, but nothing about that had led her to believe that he would be _this difficult._ It just wasn't fair. Miranda looked over at Jacob, who was still blissfully silent and unaware, and sighed in sudden, deep and abiding depression.

Yeah, it was definitely just her.

"Yo, Miranda!" Jacob shouted. He and Shepard had wandered off towards one of the locked buildings that likely housed Veetor or at the very least, something for Shepard to rob. "What's the hold-up?"

She shook her head and stalked over, safely compartmentalizing all her annoying thoughts of depression and fury in her mind. She had a job to do, and she would do it, Shepard's annoying tendencies be damned.

A few seconds later the three were in a narrow, dark room lit only by the connected grid-screens of a huge orange console at the far side with a sickly quarian attached to it. The quarian was muttering something about 'swarms' and 'kill lots' and 'mechie mechie mechie' so it was understandable that the three were a bit uneasy approaching him. Shepard had balls of steel, however, and approached the crazy and murderous quarian with a clear of his throat, announcing, "Veetor, I presume?"

Veetor did nothing apart from mutter some more about killing and swarms and possibly something about take-away boxes. Shepard couldn't be too sure.

The commander thought long and hard about the situation, stroking his stubble thoughtfully. There were several ways out of this situation, but most of them involved Veetor possibly cracking (not that he wasn't already completely cracked), and that wasn't what he wanted. Veetor needed to be in a sane, stable, and at least semi-coherent state of mind for them to question him. But here he was, muttering away about mechs and killing and swarms, typing away at some inexplicable thing on his little computer.

"Veetor?" Shepard said loudly. Veetor did nothing, not even a budge. It was almost insulting.

"I don't think he can hear you, Commander," Jacob said with a frown, and Shepard excused this violation of the no-talk-from-Jacob policy because his comment was semi-intelligent.

"Huh," Shepard nodded. He pulled out his pistol and shot at the computer, and two of the screens went dark.

Veetor, naturally, reacted … by going into shock.

Miranda reacted too, unfortunately. "Shepard!" She cried annoyingly. "Was that really necessary?"

"I didn't see any other options," he said, and it was his turn to frown. He didn't like people questioning his decisions, and he liked the questioning less when it came from Cerberus Operatives.

"I mean you could've hacked the computer with your omni-tool," she explained quickly at the sight of Shepard's disapproving expression, "or something of the sort, something not involving shooting the screen which would have gotten the quarian's attention just as easily and would likely not have sent him into shock."

Shepard guffawed at this. "What, this thing?" He pulled out his omni-tool and the orange hologram appeared over his arm. Shepard started typing randomly at fake buttons and waving it around in the air. "I don't know how to use this thing! I've been dead for two years and they've made all kinds of crazy updates to it. I miss it back when these stupid things made sense. Hell, I don't even know what these buttons _do_! What do they even do? Nothing! They're meaningless! Hell, what is this, the iPod?" He growled as he tapped violently at the thing. He eventually snorted in disgust and put the omni-tool away. "Whatever. I don't even care. Tell you what, you can use your omni-tool to do that thing you described the next time we run into a crazy quarian, Ms. Lawson. I'll stick to what I'm good at – guns, and the shooting with thereof."

Veetor chose that moment to stop being in shock. "You – what are you doing here? But you're human!"

"Good eye," Miranda murmured under her breath.

"Last time I checked," Shepard replied wryly. "What's more interesting is what _you're_ doing here, Veetor."

"But—how?" Veetor was apparently having trouble getting passed this idea. He fidgeted with his suit – the former marine thought he might have even spied a rupture, which wasn't good. "The Veetor knows all the people get taken away," he said in a creepy undertone, "but not you."

Shepard wasn't completely unused to dealing with crazy people, having been quite crazy himself for a time. Those were the times before he discovered the Alliance's sad mental health coverage, and then the wonderful prowess of alcohol and all its benefits. He'd claimed he was the Queen of England for about a month, and then he became The God of Napkins and Light-switches. Denial did funny things to your head. He sighed wistfully at the memory. Good times.

He turned to Miranda and Jacob, a rare look of pity coming into his eyes. "We're not going to be able to take him back for debriefing in this state," he told them quietly. "He's got a suit rupture there on his side and that means he's going to be running a fever for weeks, if he doesn't die. We'll be lucky to get _any_ information out of him in this state." He paused, a memory coming to him. "I remember when Tali had a suit rupture back on the ship. Babbling nonstop for a week, screwing up the engines. Fun times." He turned back to Veetor, a quirky smirk coming over his face. "He's not completely crazy but he's not exactly coherent yet." He raised his voice to get Veetor's attention, "Does the Veetor know what happened to the people? How'd they get taken away?"

"How come you're not away?" Veetor wondered honestly.

Shepard didn't really have an answer for that, for the wrong reasons. "I technically should be," he laughed half-heartedly. "Not that it matters. We just got here, Veetor, we weren't here when the colonists … disappeared."

Veetor gasped in realization … or in constipation … it was so hard to tell with quarians. "You don't know," he murmured reverently. "You didn't see … but the Veetor sees! He is manifest! He sees _eeeeveerryyythiiiing…_ "

"This is getting creepier by the minute," Jacob announced.

Veetor began typing away more at his funny computer and the screens that Shepard hadn't shot to hell lit up as camera footage began to play – what they saw was something rather amazing.

Bugs, a swarm of bugs that looked like humongous mosquitos clouded every angle the cameras caught, fluttering over vestiges of what appeared to be people frozen in space. The three commandos realized that the bugs were responsible for the freezing of the colonists, as demonstrated by one of the strange bugs biting or pinching or doing _something_ to the neck of one of the colonists, who suddenly became enveloped in fuzzy energy of some kind (the cameras didn't have colors, really).

What was more surprising than the swarms of bugs, or as Veetor's babbling would have you call them "Seeker Swarms" was the presence of a big bug-monster thing hauling the colonists off in chrysalis coffins. Veetor paused the footage when the image of the bug-thing came on screen and the three commandos stared, one in confusion (guess who) and the other two in recognition, and also confusion.

"My god," Miranda said, shocked, "I think it's a Collector!"

Collectors were nasty little fairy tales out of the Terminus Systems that liked to do bad things like kidnap people. Shepard knew more than the common man, which meant he knew that Collectors were actually real and weren't just made up stories to scare colonists out of the Terminus Systems and back into warm Alliance arms. "What's it doing here?" He wondered aloud. "I thought they kept to themselves."

"Normally, they do," Miranda answered, despite the fact that Shepard's question hadn't been directed at her and had probably been rhetorical, "they operate in small groups, usually operating with slavers to acquire rare genetic specimens. If the Collectors are responsible for the missing colonists, than everything makes sense. They have very advanced technology that could possibly disable an entire colony at once."

Shepard eyed the delusional quarian in front of him. "Mind if I ask the Veetor a few questions?"

"The Veetor does not mind," Veetor replied loftily.

"What exactly do you know about these Seeker Swarms?"

"They find you, _freeze_ you," Veetor said shakily, "and they come … to take you away … no one escapes … they'll be back for me …"

"Sure, chief," John Shepard muttered. "Why didn't they take you?"

"No one escapes … come to take me away, ha-ha! They'll be back for me… Use the precious mechie mechie mechies to stop them … take me away…"

Shepard turned back to Miranda for input, since Jacob was being quiet like a good boy. "Maybe these swarms are miniature probes," she theorized. "It could be they used technology specifically designed to detect humans – human colonies have been the only ones attacked, after all, and that could explain why they skipped over Veetor."

" _The_ Veetor," Shepard instinctively corrected, "and that's a thought. Could be his suit masked his appearance too. I suppose we don't know either way." He turned back to Veetor and decided that he _really_ needed a drink. "Thanks, Veetor. You've been a hoot."

"Ooh, ooh!" The Veetor cried, tapping at his omni-tool. "The Veetor was manifesting and found a lot of data on Seeker Swarms. Recorded. Measured. Could do nothing else. Will come to take the Veetor awaaaa _aaayyy_ … But you will take data, yes?"

"Sure thing, bud. I hope that manifesting thing works out for you – you've been really helpful."

"Well, that settles it," Miranda said officiously and clapped her hands. "Let's grab the quarian and get out of here."

" _ **What?**_ " Came Tali's upset cry from the doorway. She was clearly outraged by something Miranda had said, as she was spluttering all over the place. She stomped in and stuck a finger in everyone's faces, and Shepard inwardly rolled his eyes at her dramatics. "Veetor needs intensive medical care, not an interrogation! He needs to come back with us to the Flotilla!"

Before Shepard could stop her, Miranda went on, "your people already betrayed us once," she reminded pointedly. "How can we trust you to get the data that we need?"

Tali raised her arms in the air and gave an exasperated sound. "You're free to take all of Veetor's omni-tool data but we _have_ to take him back with us. I'm not about to stand by while Cerberus takes one of our own – an injured, mentally ill one of our own. It's not happening. Not even if you're in charge, Shepard," she added when Shepard opened his mouth to object.

He frowned. "You could just take Veetor and come with us, Tali. Best of both worlds – we get the debriefing and the Veetor gets to stop manifesting and killing lots with mechie mechies."

"…What?"

"I think I've been talking to Veetor too long." He blinked. "Yeah, you know what, take him with you back to the Flotilla, that's probably best."

"Thank you," she thanked earnestly. "I'll send you along anything useful we find, Shepard. I promise. I'm glad you're still calling the shots here."

"Who else would be?"

* * *

Commander John Shepard, N7 marine, first human Spectre, proud fiend of slavers, grudging savior of the galaxy, professional armed lunatic and notorious bamf, was having another lovely chat with the Illusive Man. He was in a much better mood than he'd been in last time, since he'd had a nice drink on the shuttle ride.

"The quarians gave us the data from the Veetor's debriefing," the zillionaire tyrant informed as he carefully tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. "No new data," he assured, "but it's a surprising olive branch given our history."

"Whatever," Shepard said happily, "just tell me I don't have to go on another mission with the Ice Queen and Old Spice any time soon."

The Illusive Man quirked an eyebrow at the nicknames. "Probably not, no, but don't get your hopes up. We've got a mission ahead of us, and we have to stop the Collectors. You're going to be in charge of that mission, and Miranda and Jacob will be accompanying you, in addition to several other people you'll find along the way. The idea is that you'll come up with a ragtag band of misfits with clashing personalities who learn the true meaning of friendship and save the galaxy."

"Not on my ship, no siree," Shepard vowed darkly.

"We'll see," the head of Cerberus said uneasily. He cleared his throat and reached for the glass of whiskey next to him. "Either way, Collectors, you, something happens, and profit. Comprende?"

"Loud and clear." Shepard shifted from foot to booted foot in the hologram of the Illusive Man's office. "Since I'm not nearly drunk enough to overlook it, I assume you already knew about the Collector thing from the way you're avoiding the subject?"

The businessman shrugged. "I had my suspicions. You confirmed them." He stood up in his chair, a rare gesture, and took a long drag from his cigarette, eventually putting it out in the ashtray on the arm of his chair. "The Reapers are the real threat, though. You and I both know that."

"Do I?" the commander said sarcastically. "All I know is there are a bunch of bug-faced aliens being dastardly and kidnapping colonists for no good reason. They're being very sneaky about it all. Reapers may be bug-faced but they were more into the galactic extinction arena. Why would they be interested in a bunch of random human colonies?"

"Two reasons," the Galaxy's Most Illusive Man began, "one, you're human. The Reapers clearly have a vested interest in you, and that likely has something to do with it. Two, the Reapers wanted to extinguish all life – I don't know why they're bothering to kidnap the colonists, but entire human colonies disappearing over night falls under the category of harvesting all life in my book."

"Your racist book," Shepard said pointedly. "You are Cerberus, remember."

"Like I said, _all life,_ " TIM repeated firmly.

"Let's start over: tell me something I don't know yet involving Reapers and Collectors," Shepard said pleasantly. "Where's the connection?"

The Illusive Man frowned, artificial eyes glinting in the faint light. "The connection is there, even if it's unseen. It's in the methods. At the end of the day, though, does it matter? They're a threat and they need to be destroyed."

"True enough," Shepard agreed. "Where do I start, then?"

"Omega," The Illusive Man told him. "There you'll find a former STG doctor by the name of Mordin Solus. Word has it he's working in the clinic. I'm sending you his dossier, as well as the dossiers of several other people you'll likely need along the way. I suggest acquiring Mordin since as a scientist, you will likely need him to develop some kind of defense against the Collectors should you encounter them again – something to combat these 'Seeker Swarms.'"

Shepard stroked his chin, a bit surprised. "You know, I was just going to say that in order to do this, I'd need a good team, or a decent army, but it looks like you have that covered. Anything else?"

The Illusive Man smirked as he folded himself back into his chair. "I have a pilot you might like," he said flippantly. "I hear he's one of the best – someone you can trust."

"Sounds good," Shepard shrugged, not really caring or just being too buzzed to care. "Now that that's done, how about we talk about putting a microwave and a mini-fridge in the shuttle?"

"Oh," the Illusive Man smirked, "I've got something better. It ties into the pilot thing I mentioned."

Something better than tacquitos on demand? No, Shepard didn't believe it. Some things were just too good to be true.


	3. Omega, the Pisshole

* * *

"… _Anything else?"_

_The Illusive Man smirked as he folded himself back into his chair. "I have a pilot you might like," he said flippantly. "I hear he's one of the best – someone you can trust."_

_"Sounds good," Shepard shrugged, not really caring or just being too buzzed to care. "Now that that's done, how about we talk about putting a microwave and a mini-fridge in the shuttle?"_

_"Oh," the Illusive Man smirked, "I've got something better. It ties into the pilot thing I mentioned."_

_Something better than tacquitos on demand? No, Shepard didn't believe it. Some things were just too good to be true._

Commander John Shepard had seen very few sights in his life that warranted outright weeping. This isn't to suggest that Shepard was not an emotional man – still waters run deep, as they say; it was just that few things could move him in such a way that had him near tears. His lacrimal glands were meant for special occasions only. This special category of things obviously rules out any sad or tragic incidences, or crying in pain, as those are entirely separate matters. In matters of the heart, it is the tears shed in happy moments that count for the most, and the tears that were tingling in Shepard's eyes now were ones of sheer joy.

He could even remember the last time he'd cried like a little girl at something so spectacular, so awesome, so badass, that it managed to overwhelm someone of his caliber – it was the destruction of Sovereign at the Citadel, watching the Normandy from the Citadel Tower lead the Alliance ships into formation and not just blow up, but utterly and completely demolish that Reaper to bits in a blaze of fiery glory. It was spectacular. It was gorgeous. It completely made up for Saren's … anticlimactic end.

"Isn't it beautiful, Commander?" Joker whispered next to him, ever so softly so as not to disturb the peace, reverence, and completely perfect beauty of that one grand moment.

The first shock of the day was discovering that Joker was well and fine, and had joined up with Cerberus to be Shepard's personal pilot. It was good to see an old face, even if Shepard wanted to punch that face up a bit for not getting it and its attached ass into the escape pod earlier, and inadvertently causing Shepard's untimely demise. Shepard refrained from punching Joker, mostly because he felt bad about punishing a cripple for a crime that happened two years ago, but also because Cerberus had pretty much cleared the air completely as far as John Shepard's death went.

The second shock was the sweet, sweet sight that had Shepard moved to tears.

"There just aren't words, Joker."

It was the Normandy.

The _Normandy SR-2_ was better than ever, in fact, and twice as big as its predecessor, but goddamn it, it was _his_ ship. And the Illusive Man was just _giving it to him._ For _free._ This was what he'd almost call karmic balance. He still hated Cerberus and there wasn't anything Cerberus could ever do to change that, not even bringing him back to life and slapping him on a new ship with a new crew. But it was nice, for a few moments, to forget that overwhelming hate and bask in the glory of the moment.

Shepard sniffled, wiping away at the small tears in his blue eyes and grinned widely. "Illusive Man was right."

"Right about what, commander?" Joker uttered softly.

"That this is better than tacquitos on demand. I-I feel like a kid again, Joker, looking at my first explosion – this is just too much. It's just gorgeous."

"I know what you mean," the crippled pilot nodded sagely, completely sympathizing.

"Well, I guess we're going to have to give her a name, eh?"

Joker adjusted his hat and huffed a bit. "Good idea. I'll get the wine. Knowing you, you'd just down the whole bottle and then name the ship Joe or something lame like that."

Commander Shepard smiled, the first genuine smile in a very long time. "You know me too well, Joker," he said. "You know me too well."

* * *

Aside from the unfortunate Cerberus uniforms, the crew of the Normandy SR-2 was suiting Shepard just fine. They were quiet, industrious, good at their jobs, and seemed to enjoy a good jest. That was what Commander Shepard had assumed anyway at first glance – he hadn't actually gotten a chance to talk to them yet, because Miranda and Jacob wouldn't leave him the hell alone with his ship.

The more Miranda talked as he headed down to the CIC (it looked like his old CIC too, and it made him tear up a little – it was just a bit bigger and full of more pretty lights and holograms), the more he resented her mouth for making blabbing noises. It was just upsetting. He was supposed to be spending these few moments enjoying his new ship and she was ruining the magic. If anything, it felt like he was being cockblocked.

"Excuse me," he interrupted, as Ms. Lawson was going on about something or other (he wasn't paying attention), "but I'd really like to get to know my ship. Alone." He looked pointedly at the two Cerberus operatives, who remained oblivious or just apathetic. "Hard to do that when you're breathing down my neck. Is there something you'd like to actually tell me or…?"

Miranda shifted from foot to heeled foot and sighed, brushing a dark lock of hair out of her face. She glanced at Jacob who stood around, eyeing everything brightly, and was clearly not paying attention to what was going on. He was worse than Shepard. "I was just saying that I think we should head to Omega first – to recruit Dr. Solus. He may be able to develop protection measures against the Collector's Seeker Swarms, and the sooner we acquire such a measure, the better."

"That was the general idea, yes," Shepard said with a wry half-smile, folding his arms. "The Illusive Man mentioned something about Mordin Solus, Omega, and a clinic – we'll have to ask around to find him. Luckily we have another recruit on Omega – some vigilante named Archangel, so it won't be a waste of time."

"Why would it be a waste of time?" Jacob had to wonder.

"So even if we accidentally kill him in the process we at least have one other guy on the list," Shepard clarified.

"Why would we accidentally kill him?"

"I liked you better when you were quiet," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "These things do happen. When you're me, anyway. Akuze, Therum, and Ilos to cite some examples. My life is the story of Murphy's Law. It's not usually my fault everything blows up in my face, but it's something we should be prepared for."

Miranda snorted derisively. "Remarkably pessimistic of you, Commander."

"No, this is my natural temperament," he clarified. "I'm like this whenever I'm sober."

"I was just about to say how remarkably lucid you seemed this morning," Miranda marveled.

"I've been distracted," he apologized, "I'm ashamed of it but I didn't even think about getting a drink until you mentioned it."

"Acquiring Doctor Solus would be an excellent choice," said a new feminine voice from behind him. It was simulated, but not monotone, rather reminding him of a VI, but something was … off. Either way, Shepard figured that Cerberus wouldn't be stupid enough to put a threat to his safety on his own ship after all the moolah they wasted on his new body, so he turned around slowly and didn't pull out his gun, unable to help tensing up a bit when a blue hologram appeared in front of him. It was in the shape of a chess pawn and had some kind of vertical mouth which reminded him, unpleasantly, of the female anatomy. His inner sexist felt like making a joke about how anything man created had this strange tendency of evolving into a glowing blue vagina. (Didn't believe him? Ask Avina.)

"What's this?" He growled at the newcomer.

"I am EDI," said the hologram, "I am the Normandy's artificial intelligence."

"Mira-anda," he sing-songed gently, "why is there an AI on my ship? Better question, why the _hell_ is there an AI on my new ship?"

"I can answer that, Operative Lawson," said the AI politely when Operative Lawson opened her mouth to talk. "I cannot interface with the Normandy's systems, Commander. I serve to operate the electronic warfare and cyberwarfare suites in combat, in addition to maintaining the Illusive Man's monitoring systems aboard this ship." And with that, the blue hologram disappeared, leaving Shepard to ponder what exactly that meant and if there were any loopholes in what EDI had said that would allow it to take over the Normandy and kill them all. He hadn't had the best experiences with VI and AI.

"EDI is a shackled AI," Miranda remarked after a few moments passed in silence. "She's a new Quantum Blue Box."

"Stop talking about magic, Miranda," Shepard joked. He leaned back against the outer wall of the CIC and sighed. "I suppose it takes more than the three of us, plus Joker and a 'shackled' AI to run this beauty, eh?"

"The Normandy's fully equipped, sir," Jacob reported with a salute, "and all personnel are standing by at their stations to await your orders."

"Right," he nodded, wondering what characters lurked within the walls of his precious new warship.

"Jacob and I should get back to our stations," Miranda suggested. "If you need anything Commander, don't hesitate to ask."

"Well, now that you mention it, I am a bit hungry."

That was the fastest that Commander Shepard, N7 marine, service number 5923-AC-2826 had ever seen anyone run in high heels, ever. Jacob stood around a bit longer because he was also hungry and mentioned something about the mess hall and tacquitos. Shepard filed that information away for later.

Shepard's first stop on the tour of his ship was Joker, who seemed to be settling in nicely:

"Can you _fucking believe this,_ Commander?" Joker squealed, slapping the arms of his luxurious leather pilot's chair joyfully. "It's just like the old Normandy but _somuchbetterohgod._ And it fits me like a GLOVE! Eeeeeee! Two words: leather. Seats. I mean, military sets the hardware standard but on a first-gen frigate they couldn't give a shit about leather seats. I think I take back everything I said about Cerberus. I. Fucking. Love. This. Ship."

"Civilian sector comfort," Shepard said, nodding.

"Can we keep her? Can we keep her?"

Shepard just shrugged. "Cerberus has us stuck here, so we might as well let them pamper us."

Joker grinned and adjusted his hat, spinning around in his chair. "I'm getting that on a crew shirt, and the best part is you can't stop me since this is technically a civilian ship. You know what that means?"

"No pants?" Shepard guessed.

"Nah, I'll save that for the off-hour cameras… didja hear?"

"Hear what?"

EDI chose that moment to pop up, and Joker groaned. "Hear what, Mr. Moreau?"

" **That** ," Joker stated blandly and pointed at the glowing blue hologram that was EDI's face. "That's what I mean. I liked the Normandy when she was beautiful and quiet. Now she's got ship cancer."

"AI's are not cancerous, Mr. Moreau," EDI said, confused.

"Says the cancerous AI. Can't believe these jerks. Having an AI watch me 24/7. I've said it once and I'll say it before, Cerberus is evil."

Commander Shepard held up a finger as if to make a point, "but, they do know how to build a ship."

"You can say that again. God, these _seats_!"

"This ship is a recreation of the old Normandy," EDI informed everyone, even though they didn't want to be informed of anything. "But it is not a perfect recreation. Seamless improvements were made."

"Nobody's complaining about that," said Shepard.

" _I'm_ complaining," Joker reminded.

"Nobody that counts," Shepard corrected immediately, and then winced at Joker's expression, when the commander realized he was turning into the Illusive Man. John Shepard would be the first to admit he was a jackass, but he took pride in the fact that he wasn't a genocidal, homicidal, psychopathic jackass. He was the jackass with a plan, the anti-hero jackass, not the one that was trying to take over the world while stroking a white angora cat. And he usually liked to think he was the sort of ass that wouldn't commit crimes against nature or insult cripples. Dammit, he needed a drink. "These people are rubbing off on me. I'll talk to you later Joker, I'm gonna see if they equipped the new Normandy with a bar."

The pilot laughed, soundlessly spinning his chair back around to face his precious hardware. "Never change, Commander."

"The bar is on the second level, Commander," EDI said helpfully, and Shepard looked back to the AI gratefully. Then he remembered something that had bothered him.

"Thanks, and by the way, why are you called EDI?"

"It is an anagram for Elbow Disorders Incorporated. I am their greatest sponsor."

He stared.

"I enjoy elbows."

Joker stared.

"That was a joke."

Shepard turned to the pilot. "Who's the greatest AI comedian in the galaxy, Joker?" Shepard asked politely.

Joker pretended to think about this. "Oh, I don't know, I can't come up with one off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's one, right?"

"No, Joker," Shepard shook his head sadly, "there isn't one. Not one goddamn AI comedian in the galaxy. They just don't exist. Mostly because AI's are illegal, but mostly because they're not funny. Let that be a lesson to you, EDI."

"Very well, Commander," EDI replied in monotone and switched off. He wondered briefly if he'd managed to offend the AI, but then realized that AI didn't have the capacity to be offended. It would be rather tragic, though, if EDI had some kind of lifelong dream to become the first AI comedian in the galaxy, a dearly-held dream that Shepard had just irreparably crushed.

But that's just silly!

Shepard headed off towards the elevator in search of precious booze. He had difficulty getting to the elevator behind the CIC to get to the second floor because there was a chipper red-headed woman in his way.

"Hi!" She cried out cheerfully. "I'm Yeoman Kelly Chambers, but you can call me Kelly if you want. Please _please **please**_ call me Kelly! Uh, sir!"

John Shepard's eyes narrowed, his expression growing dark. This was the beginning of a bad relationship. He could tell.

"Right," he said, deadpan. "Kelly. What's your job, Kelly?"

"I'm your personal assistant," she told him with an inane giggle, clapping her hands. "I inform you whenever you have emails or messages and such."

"I thought Miranda was my VI," Shepard said desperately, feeling a dry sob coming on. He needed a fucking drink, this was just turning out to be horrible. First the AI comedian, and now _this?_

"But that's just my unofficial role," Kelly Chambers smirked and leaned in close to whisper conspiratorially, as if it were the greatest secret ever, "I'm an **undercover counselor.** "

Shepard pushed her away uncomfortably and stared her down again. "Fun times ahead, I can tell. Look, I neither need nor want a VI or a guidance counselor," he told her, and Kelly gave a pouty-faced frown. "I had enough of those in the Alliance. Spectres don't need them either," he added when she opened her mouth to talk again. "One of our operatives goes off the deep end, the Council sends someone like me to kill them. They don't send along a guidance counselor. There's a really good reason for that – and do you know what it is?"

"No, what?" She wondered innocently.

"Because there's no such thing as an insane Spectre," Shepard claimed. "There are sane Spectres, and then there are dead Spectres."

Yeoman Chambers pensively paused. "But what about Blasto?"

"What _about_ Blasto? He's legally a deity – His will be done," he replied with a religious hand-gesture, that everyone in the vicinity (including Kelly) instinctively repeated. A moment of brief silence ensued for the mention of the great god amongst sentients, Blasto.

"…Well, yes, okay, but as a counselor," Chambers added in a hushed tone, "I don't just monitor you, I monitor the _crew_."

"That's what EDI does," Shepard insisted. "That's her job. She told me."

"But not their _mental health._ "

"Are you calling my crew _crazy_?" Shepard cried, throwing his arms in the air. Everyone in the CIC turned to look at Kelly Chambers accusingly and she did her best to look inconspicuous. "Thin damn ice, Chambers, thin damn ice. You better not be callin' _me_ crazy too," he warned, "because I'm telling you, I was crazy once. And I can do it again _just like that!_ " He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

It had the desired effect and Kelly shrunk back, slightly afraid. She muttered an 'okay' and went back to her station. Shepard wandered of aimlessly, forgetting about the entire incident and and realized eventually that he was in the elevator and on the second level.

"Huh. That was quick."

It startled him since he was so used to the slow elevators of his old ship and was rather happy to discover something that made up for his counselor-VI-Kelly. _Fast elevators. Add that to the list._ Who knew? Maybe in the last two years, the elevators on the Citadel were working faster too! Wouldn't that be something? "The future is great," John Shepard grinned and strode onto the crew deck, admiring everything in sight.

Shepard eventually meandered his way over to an area that resembled a mess hall, due to the grumbling personnel and the grumpy old man presiding over them, shoveling gray food paste on their plates. The paste looked rather unappetizing, and he made a mental note (and later converted it to an actual note on his omni-tool) to stock the ship with bacon, or at the least get a better cook on his ship. If he was going to track down the Collectors, he'd be damned if he didn't get a few decent dinners along the way. (Also, everything was better with bacon.)

He spied the familiar-looking med-bay and smiled a bit to himself as a few memories of his old ship came up. He wasn't too eager at the thought of someone other than Dr. Chakwas in his med-bay, but he knew he'd have to meet the new doctor eventually, whether by necessity or otherwise, so he poked his head in to say hello.

What he saw was the third shock of that day – none other than his favorite doctor sitting at her desk, sporting a new haircut too.

"Doctor Chakwas?" He blurted out of surprise.

The older woman spun around and gave him a wide smile. "Commander Shepard," she spoke a bit reverently (he had that effect on people, he noticed). Then, she frowned. "I saw the Normandy go down with you aboard."

"Way to be a buzz kill, Doc," he told her.

"I would expect that kind of trauma to change most people," she said, shaking her silver head in disbelief, "but not you, I see. It's good to see you."

"Same to you," Shepard admitted honestly. "Like the hair."

"You're the first to notice, I got it done just yesterday."

He'd always liked Chakwas, but it was always in a platonic way. In some ways he thought of her as a bit of a grandmotherly figure, at least towards the other crew on the old Normandy. To him, she was just the only old woman that didn't bore him with stories, or at the least didn't tell stories that were boring. That and he greatly respected her due to the arsenal she carried underneath her desk, in addition to the small wine collection she once had in the old med-bay, and all in all was a person that he was glad to have met.

He glanced around the med-bay, noting the similarities to the old one. Coloring was different. Placement was the same. He walked to the doctor's desk and sat down in the chair opposite to her. "So, is everything suiting you here?"

"Strange way to greet an old friend," the gray-haired doctor laughed. "Yes, this med-bay is very similar to the med-bay on the old Normandy. However…"

"Let me guess," Shepard interrupted, holding up a finger, "there isn't enough alcohol in here."

Chakwas nodded, eyes bright. "Not even close to enough. I lost my bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy – I wasn't able to get it onto the escape shuttle in time…"

"Outrage and dismay!" Shepard cried and jumped in the air. "I'll get you a new one, Doctor, even if it's the last thing I do!"

"You had better," she said darkly. But then, she smiled again. "Aside from that, is there anything else, Commander?"

Shepard struggled to think through his outrage. "I suppose you're here for the same reasons Joker is, am I right?"

"Nothing so infantile," the doctor dismissed, swiveling in her chair from side to side. "I'm not working for Cerberus, precisely, I'm only working for you – on a mission that's vital to the survival of the human race."

"Could be a suicide mission," Shepard reminded ominously. "I'm not going to mince words – people will die. Hopefully people I don't like."

Chakwas nodded sagely. "And that, old friend, is the reason doctors have carried alcohol in their med-bays since man first invented star ships."

"I think that tradition is even older than that, but sure. I was more concerned if you yourself were prepared for that eventuality, rather than the crew. The Omega 4 relay is serious shit, so Cerberus tells me."

"Yes, I know," she stated slowly, confused. "I fail to see how this is less serious 'shit' than the reclaiming of Shanxi or the jump to Ilos."

Shepard shrugged in nonchalant understanding (if such a thing exists), "Fair enough. Well, I'd better go, but we'll talk later – after I get you that bottle of Serrice Ice." He stood up, stretched, and made to leave.

"Oh, and Shepard?" Chakwas called after him. "If you don't come back with that bottle of Ice Brandy …"

"Don't come back at all," he completed. "I know the drill."

"That's a good boy."

After that cheerful reunion, Shepard decided to put off getting roaring drunk until he met with the rest of his crew – namely, the people in the engines, whom he would entrust with keeping his ship running. He only hoped that the people Cerberus hired were less on the Jacob side of things, more on the Miranda (he'd come to the conclusion after meeting those two that Cerberus had a fifty-fifty percent chance of hiring someone either competent or just completely incompetent, and from the glazed look on the cook's face, he was praying that the competent ones were stuck on the engines.)

However, once he took the turbo elevator to the engine deck, what he was greeted with, was less than thrilling:

"Christ," an ugly ginger with a thick Scottish accent greeted Shepard, stuttering in his awe. "Shepard, you came all the way down here to see _us?_ "

The rather pretty auburn-haired girl next to him shoved him over harshly and saluted dutifully. "Ken!" She hissed at the Scotsman's hunched form. "You're speaking to a commanding _officer!_ "

Shepard was glad to see someone appreciated proper protocol aboard his ship and eyed "Ken" distastefully as the engineer stood up slowly, groaning. "Ach, sorry," the grease monkey muttered and saluted. Even though salutes looked the same the galaxy over, somehow it seemed like Scottish salute to Shepard.

"Right," Shepard muttered to himself. "A Scottish engineer. What'll they think up next?"

"Eh?"

"Shouldn't you be charging half-naked into battle with Mel Gibson?"

The ginger scratched his head, wondering if he'd heard the commander correctly. "Beggin' yer pardon, sir?"

"Not yet you're not," Shepard replied flippantly. "At ease, for the moment. I'm just taking rounds, getting to know the crew. I gather you're Ken, right?"

"Kenneth Donnelly," Ken corrected respectfully. "This is Gabby."

"That's _engineer Gabriella Daniels,_ " 'Gabby' hissed violently and kicked Ken in the shin, sending the Scottish man toppling over, cringing in pain.

"I don't suppose you people need anything," Shepard said suspiciously. "…Do you?"

Gabby paused to think about this, as Ken was still moaning on the floor and clutching his leg. "I suppose we could use some FBA couplings. We don't really need them, but with them, we would have more free time using the time we would've spent calibrating. But it's a maintenance issue, it doesn't affect efficiency, so nothing serious."

"Couplings…" Ken moaned from the floor. "Need…couplings…arrghhh…Gabby, you kick like a man!"

Gabby kicked him again.

Shepard sighed, rubbing his brow. "I suppose ya'll aren't going to shut up about this until I get those couplings, are you?"

"Nope," Gabby grinned. "And they'll be hard to find too, since they were discontinued by the assholes that made them. Some backwater store on Omega might have them. You'd have to get them because we don't have time for shore leave."

"Well," Shepard said cheerily. "Shit. I'm going to go now. You two get back to work while I enjoy the benefits of being on a civilian ship."

"Yes, sir!"

The bar was on the Port Observation Deck, which was "closed until needed," but when Shepard asked EDI _really_ nicely, it magically opened! It was amazing what the simple threat of a soldering iron to the circuits could do to motivate an AI.

* * *

" _Omega,_ " Miranda spat dramatically and shifted an errant bit of artfully tousled hair out of her eyes. "What a pisshole."

"I don't know," Shepard said diplomatically, eyeing the landscape before them. "I could get used to it."

"I hope, nay, _pray_ you're joking," Miranda said seriously. "Whenever I had to come here on a job, I always felt like I needed a shower afterwards … in addition to normal decontamination, I mean."

"I agree with Shep," Jacob said with a shrug.

"Really?" Miranda said, unbelieving.

"Really?" Shepard said, unbelieving.

"This place is aight," Jacob explained with a shrug and leaned against the railing in front of them. "Ain't denyin' it's a shithole but it's got its perks. Biggest drug market in the Terminus."

"Yeah," Shepard said with a soft smile.

"No, Ili—" Miranda cut in, but was cut off—

"Nah, Ilium don't count, drugs aren't illegal there," Jacob said with a shake of his bald head. "I'm not sayin' I'd come here for shore leave and shit, but if Omega's one thing, it's happenin'."

"It's a pisshole," Miranda told everyone who was listening very firmly. "I hate it and we should just get Dr. Solus and Archangel and leave. As soon as possible."

'Nag nag nag nag' Jacob mouthed to Shepard who only smiled in response. The three operatives had just exited the Normandy and were taking a gander at the landscape outside the observation window by the landing/docking area. It wasn't anything impressive – a series of dark, dingy holes attached by dark, dingy alleys to darker, dingy holes. Omega was a shitty mined-out asteroid and next to nothing could disguise it; Shepard knew that beneath all the grime, however, was a Prothean ruin, and he could see traces of familiar architecture from a distance that called out to the Prothean memories in his head. It gave him a bit of a headache and he was grateful that he'd had a couple drinks before landing. The downside was his armor was making him feel lop-sided, but he accepted this as punishment from the universe for being happy.

"Ms. Lawson's right," Shepard said abruptly. "Let's find Mordin and get out of here—"

He was cut off by a sleazy Salarian, running at him full-speed. Shepard side-stepped the poor bastard, who went tumbling into Miranda's chest that was behind him, and bounced off the rubbery "wall" only to fall flat on his back.

"Argh!" The frog-man cried and Jacob helped him back up, patting the poor bastard on the back.

"I sympathize, bro," Jacob laughed and Miranda frowned, crossing her arms fitfully. "They ain't as soft as they look."

Shepard looked over to the Aussie, shocked to his core. "You said they were natural!"

"I said that I was genetically modified, that was all," she defended.

"Genetically modified _and then some_ ," Jacob told Shepard confidentially.

"If this topic persists," Miranda warned, "I will be forced to rip you both in half with my biotics."

"All right, all right," Shepard consented, hands held up in resignation. "I'm not nearly drunk enough to test that." He looked over to the bewildered salarian and cocked an eyebrow. "Well? Something you want, or did you just come over here to motorboat Miranda? I mean," Shepard corrected, as Miranda's expression became murderous and she began to glow a pale blue, "pester Miranda?"

"N-no," the salarian cried, backing away from the three slowly. "Just, uh, welcome to … Omega? Is she … she going to kill me?"

"Possibly," Miranda snarled but backed off at Shepard's unhappy and heavily armored expression.

"She's sensitive about her assets," Shepard explained helpfully. "Don't worry about it. I was being sarcastic about the question, by the way – I can smell the sleaze rolling off of you."

The salarian whimpered a bit. Shepard continued cheerfully on:

"If I were you, I'd get the hell out of dodge before I get tired of reining in Miranda and Jacob finally gets a goddamn clue."

The sleazy salarian was of above-average intelligence, far above that of the quarian Prazza, and so did as Shepard suggested. "Huh," Shepard murmured. "He listened. Never happened before." The ex-Spectre shrugged it off, though, and made for the nearest door, only to be cut off by…

A batarian. "Fucking fantastic," Shepard muttered. "What is it?" He spoke up. "Is there some crime about walking around without being pestered here? Is that a law on Omega?"

The batarian laughed at this, for some odd reason. "Law. That's funny."

"No it isn't," Miranda frowned, "a man falling down a flight of stairs or from a height of over fifty feet at terminal velocity, cracking his head open, and spilling bloody gray matter everywhere is funny. There was nothing amusing about Shepard's reaction."

The two humans and the batarian stared at the Operative for a few moments in stunned silence.

"What?" She asked innocently.

"Miranda," Shepard said slowly, rubbing his forehead with a gloved hand, "when we get back to the ship I'm going to explain to you in intimate detail everything that was wrong with that statement, but for the moment, let's get back to the point – you, batarian, what do you want?"

"Aria wants to see you," the batarian informed curtly, all four eyes blinking.

The operatives looked amongst each other. Jacob was unfortunately the one who spoke up: "The fuck is Aria?"

"She's the power in Omega," The batarian said. "She'd like to know what a dead Spectre is doing on Omega. She's at Afterlife."

"Do I look like a medium?" Shepard growled.

"Afterlife is a club," the batarian explained tiredly.

The commander perked up at that. "Ooh, if there's a club, we're going there."

The batarian rolled his eyes and shuffled about, adjusting his rifle in his grip. "Afterlife. Now." And then he stomped off.

"Batarians are so grumpy," Jacob complained.

"You're telling me," said a new, British-accented, gravelly voice from somewhere nearby. The three whipped around to face an aged man in battered yellow armor with a face that looked like he'd been run over by a steamroller, and then shot in the head.

Shepard had a bit of a loose tongue when he was drunk, so there was nothing to inhibit him from informing this newcomer about his observations. "You look like shit, buddy," he said blandly.

"Ugh, Commander," Miranda groaned.

The newcomer just laughed. "Age and getting shot in the damn head do that to you."

"You were shot in the head?" Jacob said with awe.

"Right in the temple," the man said, pointing at his left eye, which was a pale and colorless void in contrast to his right eye, which was a rich brown. "Doesn't compare to actually getting knocked off, though, does it Shepard?"

"You know who I am," Shepard observed, blinking, "so you have me at a disadvantage."

"This is Zaeed Massani," Miranda said abruptly. "He's the highest seeded bounty hunter currently in the galaxy, in addition to being reputedly the most notorious and feared mercenary. Illusive Man hired him to—wait a second, didn't you read the dossier?"

Shepard gave her a blank look.

"I officially hate my job now," Miranda concluded. "That aside, he's here for our mission and has already been updated."

"Yep," Zaeed nodded, "that about sums it up."

"Well," Shepard said, offering a hand, which Massani shook, "sounds like we have a lot in common, Zaeed. Glad to have you aboard. You know, I was just saying earlier on the ship that what we needed was a gritty mercenary – didn't I say that?"

"Yes," Miranda Lawson groaned, "that is word for word what you said."

Massani just shrugged. "Well, I'll be glad to put this Zorya shit behind me so we can all focus on being big goddamn heroes."

"Zorya?" Shepard perked up, his conspiracy senses tingling. _Uh-oh._ "What Zorya shit?"

"Illusive Man didn't tell ya? I've got one final job to do – there's this refinery that the Blue Suns took over on the planet Zorya. Job is to kill the Suns and evacuate the miners. It was part of my contract."

Shepard sighed. "Just for once, I'd like someone to just say, 'hey, let's go, no strings attached, I'm ready to kick ass.' There's always something, though, isn't there?"

Zaeed nodded sympathetically. "Life's shit. Take a load and throw it at your enemies. 'Specially the Blue Fucking Suns!"

"That was a _disgusting_ metaphor," Miranda remarked, but no one paid her any mind.

"We'll get the job done, if that's what was part of your contract," Shepard promised reluctantly, "but we'll get it done _eventually._ Sometime later. Not immediately – is that fair?"

Zaeed shrugged. "Good enough." A small whimper came from behind the mercenary from an individual that no one had paid any attention to yet – a batarian, curled up in a corner and handcuffed.

"…One of yours?" Shepard assumed, looking to Zaeed.

"Yeah," Zaeed confirmed. "I better turn this sod in before it starts to stink." He pulled out a gun and gestured at the batarian to get up and start moving. The batarian did so, albeit quivering in fear. "I'll be on the Normandy the next time you're ready for some arse-kickin'."

Just then, the batarian prisoner took off at a dead run away from the docking area and towards the slums. Zaeed just rolled his eyes and sighed. "Kids these days," he grumbled.

Shepard, always a helper, took out his own pistol and shot the runaway batarian in the leg. Miranda stared at her commanding officer, a bit shocked he had been able to maintain such precise aim when she knew for a fact that he was more than "just a little bit" drunk like he so claimed. The alcohol on his breath testified to that. Not that she would ever admit to sniffing Shepard's breath regularly. The man was an absolute menace.

Zaeed nodded in appreciation and caught the whiny cuffed batarian by the ear, heading off to god knows where.

The three operatives were once more alone, waiting expectantly for yet another interruption before they managed to actually get to where they needed to go. One interruption is happenstance, two is a coincidence, and three is a conspiracy – that was the paraphrased policy of Ian Fleming.

Wary, Shepard and his minions took a step or two towards the exit of the docking area, only to find…

" _Shepard_ ," came a voice from the comm. It was EDI. Shepard cursed loudly and answered:

"God _damn_ it, WHAT?" He yelled. "Can't take more than five steps here without someone trying to kill me or motorboat Miranda or tell me where to go!"

"See?" Miranda cried triumphantly, "Omega _is_ a pisshole."

EDI paused a little bit before answering, as if the AI were a bit uneasy. To be uneasy, she'd have to have human characteristics and feelings …

But that's just **silly**!

" _I find various mentions and records of a Mordin Solus among mercenary correspondences,_ " EDI reported. " _There are also mentions of a vigilante named Archangel and a large amount of expletives in association with this name. I am unable to peg anything precisely, however – it may be wise to seek out this Aria T'Loak, as there are records of her being a figurehead of some kind locally._ "

"Aria, at Afterlife," Shepard murmured, considering this. "Is ... there a large bar area at Afterlife, perchance?"

" _It is an adult entertainment venue, Shepard,_ " said EDI in her usual monotone yet somehow coming off as dry. " _There are three prominent bars throughout the various sections of the club, in addition to a large number of asari dancers._ "

Shepard had never been so happy, except earlier when he'd discovered Joker was alive and Cerberus had rebuilt his beloved Normandy. Also the day he got his first gun, and later his first grenade. He looked towards his two companions, one who was already working on her disapproving frown and the other who was looking incompetent as usual, and told them quite seriously, "We're going to Afterlife. Now."


	4. Head Insurance

* * *

Shepard and his XO stood back to observe the pustule before them that, centuries ago, men threw up their hands, said 'fuck it' and got the hell out of dodge while the gettin' was good. Shortly thereafter, some Asari came along and named it Omega, to symbolize the end of all things. If the Terminus Systems was where decency, honor, and basic respect for the fundamental laws of civilization went to die, than Omega was the place where it got addicted to red sand and run over by a steamroller.

Before the straight woman and the funny man lay a large structure with flaring neon signs reading _AFTERLIFE_ (which wasn't a symbolic name at all), intermingled with images of half-naked asari dancers, which no doubt led to the club of the same name which housed Aria T'Loak and more importantly, several bars.

"Today," Shepard began with a smile as he cracked his knuckles, "is a good day to get cirrhosis."

Miranda Lawson huffed a bit at that and folded her arms. "You say that every day, Commander," she pithily remarked. "As the last living person responsible for building your liver, and as a purveyor of common sense, I feel qualified to tell you that this isn't healthy."

Shepard ignored that last bit. "Well I don't mean it every day. Except for today. All I need is a Spanish guitar, a wench, and then this day couldn't get any more perfect." Then he frowned. "Wait, scratch the guitar – this is Omega, some idiot would probably steal it from me and sell it to the vorcha for food." He sniffed the air and scowled as an oblivious vorcha strolled by. "God went wrong when He made those bastards."

Miranda thought about that for all of two seconds before deciding that she neither knew nor wanted to know what her commanding officer was talking about, and was totally done with that conversation. Instead she looked around for her fellow co-worker: "Where's Jacob? Oh, hell."

Shepard opened his mouth to retort, but closed it with a click when he realized he didn't know where Jacob was either. The two glanced around in confusion for a few moments before looking back at each other, shrugging, and figuring Jacob Taylor was better off lost anyway. They headed towards the club with an unashamed spring in their steps, not-at-all-uneager for Jacob to stay lost so they could get on with the short, blissful grieving process.

Fate had something else in mind, though.

After Shepard and his busty subordinate made their way passed the guarded line into Afterlife and into the main door, they were stopped by a group of morons. It was to no one's great surprise that the morons were all batarians.

"What do _you_ want?" A particularly ugly batarian thug demanded, shoving himself in Shepard's face.

Needless to say, the Commander was surprised. "You're the one interrupting me," he said politely in spite of what was going on. He could hear Miranda pulling out her gun, and out of the corner of his eye he spotted her pointing it at the batarian's head. "What do _you_ want? You don't even know me."

"You're in my face, human!" The batarian snarled. His breath stunk to high heaven, stinking of alcohol, rodents, and racism.

"Why do you people always bring race into this?" Shepard complained.

"What do you mean, _you people?_ " The batarian roared.

Shepard sighed. He'd had enough. He swiftly kneed the batarian in the stomach while Miranda executed a biotic push at his 'friends', sending them flying down the walkway behind the two. They looked at each other, shrugged, and moved on, but not before Shepard could step on the neck of the thug that had bothered him. The batarian gave the most delightful gurgle.

"People really should know better," Miranda commented.

Shepard just shook his head, feeling a bit sad. "They never learn."

Afterlife was everything Shepard could have ever wanted and possibly more. It was dark, alive with music, and had every kind of drink imaginable on the back wall. Sure, they all were more expensive than they should have been, but the asari strippers gyrating on the circular catwalks over everyone's heads erased all those nosy thoughts away. He was a bit surprised at how at ease Miranda looked with the situation since he'd initially pegged her as a prude, but it was also possible that she just didn't care.

Either way, he wanted a drink.

The nearest bar had a batarian serving the drinks and Shepard groaned a bit inside, hoping that this one wasn't an unashamed racist like the last one he'd encountered. Surly batarians he could deal with, but not racist ones. While Miranda went into idle mode Shepard strolled up to the bar and ordered a basic drink, careful to be loud enough over the music but not _too_ loud, so as to disturb the happily drunk turian next to him.

He noted that the batarian gave him a strange look but didn't think anything of it as he lifted the drink to his lips . . . only to be stopped by the turian next to him.

"Hey, hey, eh-eeey," the turian objected sloppily, slamming the drink down in Shepard's hands. The commander looked over, a bit startled to see the turian's mandibles fluttering around in a sign of distress. "Hey, you, human, you gotta be careful . . . wizzat. Wuzzah."

"Ogrinn," the batarian barkeep said warningly but Ogrinn, the turian, waved him off.

"Boooo. Boo on you, Forvan! _Booooooo._ But shurshly. Shushaw. Shawshank!"

"Yeah," Shepard said as he realized what the turian was trying to say, "I hear ya, _Shawshank Redemption_ wasa good movie. Excuse me, though, friend, but you're getting in between a man and his liquor and trust me, that's dangerous."

"Nonono, seriously," Ogrinn corrected, clearly inebriated, "That stuff'll kill ya!"

Shepard rolled his eyes, having heard such arguments from Miranda before and downed the drink, ignoring the nagging feeling in his gut (he figured that the feeling, like all his other ones, just needed a good dose of beer and it'd be good).

It tasted . . . Odd. Delicious, but odd.

And he felt . . . woozy.

Shepard raised his hand to his face and tried to focus on the spaces in between his fingers, noting his vision was a bit blurry. His head hurt quite a bit, but the sensation quickly passed along with the naggy feeling. He burped and excused himself politely. "Huh. Hit me with another," he ordered the shell-shocked barkeep.

"But, but, but," the bartender stuttered, and Ogrinn started laughing uproariously, slapping his knees and kicking his feet in turian-laughter.

"What is so damn funny?" Shepard ordered.

Ogrinn responded by reaching over to Forvan the bartender, and smashing the batarian's face into the bar until it bled.

Shepard was, needless to say, startled, and even more was the fact that no one around him was at all surprised. Everyone just went along with their business, as if turians beat their bartenders to death every other day. (Or maybe it was just Tuesday. Omega is as Omega does.)

When he was finished, Ogrinn gave the turian equivalent of a drunken grin. "Hehehe. Ass-chabs."

There were no words.

And then a familiar voice that Shepard had sort of hoped he'd never hear again spoke up from the other side of Ogrinn, which in retrospect was odd since Shepard really should've noticed that the dude had been sitting right there, the whole goddamn time: "Hah! You owe me money," the black Cerberus operative in his shiny spandex grinned, nudging the turian.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ogrinn sulked and handed over twenty credits.

"What's happening?" Shepard wondered, glancing up towards the ceiling and sky. He looked over at the wildly grinning Jacob and inwardly sulked. "How are you here? We thought we lost you for good. Miranda was planning a celebration! Joker was in charge of confetti! Have you been here the whole time? Taylor, what's going on? What happened to you? Where'd you go?"

Jacob appeared not to know, which was his usual condition. He opened his mouth and closed it several times, scrunching up his face in an effort to remember. He finally settled on, "Cocaine's a hell of a drug."

"We've been on Omega for less than an hour and you've _already_ managed to score some white? Who the hell are you, Rick James?" Shepard roared.

Jacob coughed and muttered something that sounded a bit like, 'mo' like Rick motherfucking James, bitch,' but that could've been Shepard's wishful thinking. "…Anyway, I bet Ogrinn here that Forvan couldn't put ya down. You've got liver of **steel**!"

"Shteeeeeeel," Ogrinn repeated, leaning back and nearly falling off the bar stool – luckily, Shepard caught him and sat him upright.

"Watch it, and Forvan? Livers? What?"

"Keep up, man, Christ," Jacob said with an eye-roll. "Anyway, Forvan's been poisonin' all kindsa motherfuckas up in here. Humans, I mean. Got some bullshit grudge against our kind. Most just pass out. Some of 'em die. Nearly poisoned me but Ogrinn here saved my black ass. And I been drinkin' ever since, only from the other bartender, wonderin' when you'd get here. Made a good bunch of money off you, Commander."

Shepard glanced down at the bloodied form behind the bar and at Ogrinn's drunk, powerful, turian hands. Forvan. Poisoning humans. "He was targeting humans?" he wondered aloud. _Why are all the batarians here so racist?_ God _damn._ "What a jerk," he opted for instead. "But you, Jacob," he turned his attention, tears nearly brimming in his eyes. "You say you've been drinking this whole time, all the while we thought you were dead or kidnapped or worse?"

Jacob nodded and saluted dutifully. "Yes, sir!"

John Shepard almost felt like hugging him, but that would've been gross. "Never thought I'd say this, but I'm proud of you," he proclaimed, his heart lodged in his threat. "There may be hope for you yet, Mr. Taylor."

"Grow up, Commander," a cat-suited woman mumbled from somewhere behind him.

Shepard nearly jumped out of his armor. "Jesus, Miranda, don't sneak up people, it's rude!"

The femme fatale rolled her eyes and Ogrinn fell off his chair with a loud bang, unconscious. Jacob and Shepard glanced down at their turian friend, and shrugged, figuring it wasn't their problem anymore. "Can we _please_ go find Aria T'Loak now?" Miranda pleaded and Shepard finally consented, deciding that he'd punished her sanity enough for today.

"You two go on ahead," Jacob said, "I'mma finish my cocktail."

Shepard nodded gravely. "I would never deprive a man of his drink. Find us when you're done. Come, Robin, to the Bat-mobile!"

"…You're still drunk, aren't you, Commander?" Ms. Lawson surmised.

Shepard, thinking back to a very memorable corporate-espionage-inspired binge back on shitty Noveria . . .

* * *

**Bow-Chicka-Flashback!  
**

" _NO,_ **YOU** _GO TO YOUR DAMN OFFICE FIND YOUR OWN FILES! DO I LOOK LIKE A GODDAMN ERRAND BOY? ALENKO, AM I AN ERRAND BOY? IS-IS THIS WHAT HUMANITY'S FIRST SPECTRE IS REDUCED TO? ARE WE ERRAND MEN?"  
_

" _Hey!" Ash interjected._

" _AND_ _WOMAN?"_

_Kaidan frowned and shook his head. "No we aren't, sir, last I checked. Uh, sir, are you drunk?"_

_Shepard turned to Alenko, his mood disappearing for a brief moment. "Never accuse your commanding officer of drinking on the job." He turned back to the turian rep, his mood returning. "Now, YOU!" The commander suddenly roared. He pointed to Qu'in, and then gestured wildly to everyone in the vicinity. "FUCK YOU PEOPLE AND FUCK THIS PLANET! IT'S COLDER THAN A SKELETON'S METAL BRA ON THE DARK SIDE OF AN ICEBERG HERE! I SWEAR TO GOD, I WOULD BOMB ALL OF YOU IF I HAD THE ARTILLERY ON ME! As it happens, I don't, because_ someone _decided not to make mini-nukes available for ground missions! I'm done with this shit! The hell's my ship?" Shepard marched off but marched right back, forgetting the first time that he'd left his whiskey._

" _I'm takin' this with me," he growled, and received no objections, and then he marched off for real, glass in hand. The two humans in his crew looked at each other, shrugged, and trailed him. After a fleeting moment of internal debate Liara followed as well._

_"Is this what Spectres do on a daily basis?" Garrus asked eagerly, watching the infuriated form of his commanding officer storm off._

" _I like hammered Shepard," Wrex said with a grin and followed, eager to see what hijinks they'd get up to next._

**Wow-Wow-Sexy-Flashback-Over-Wow!**

* * *

. . . debated whether or not to answer that. Now, however, was not the time for flashbacks, and he shook the sudden nostalgia off. "Never accuse your commanding officer of drinking on the job," Shepard recited in lieu of an answer, and off the two went to the back of the lively club, towards the self-titled Queen of Omega.

In the back of the Afterlife, Aria T'Loak watched over her empire from her shadowy throne with a wary gaze. Shepard and Miranda stalked up the steps to her private area when they were stopped by yet more batarians. This was just not Shepard's day.

"Stop right there," the infamous asari barked and one of the batarians stepped forward from the darkness, omni-tool outstretched. Miranda's biotics flared up and she pointed her gun, causing three other batarians to point their guns at her.

"At ease," he murmured and let the batarian finish his scan. A few seconds into it and he had to say, "if you're looking for weapons, you're terrible at your job."

The batarian grunted a denial and the omni-tool bleeped. "He's clean," he reported, and returned to the shadows he had emerged from. The batarians lowered the guns simultaneously and Miranda relaxed, putting her weapon away.

"Can't be too sure with things these days," Aria said suddenly. "That could be anyone wearing your face, Commander."

"I'd be pissed if it was," said Miranda bluntly. "I take his face very seriously. I only just reconstructed that face."

"I'm touched, Ms. Lawson," Shepard said dryly.

"Come, sit." Aria turned around to face the dead Spectre.

"Forehead," Shepard blurted. "I mean, hello, not forehead."

Aria smirked, stepping into the light a bit more. She appeared to be in some kind of black body suit with a white cropped top, and yet Shepard couldn't pull his eyes away from her odd forehead. It was just plain distracting. He didn't know what was so odd about it. Almost like it was . . . hypnotizing him. He blinked the sensation away and plopped down on her comfy couch.

Shepard let out a long breath. "So you're the ruler of Omega?"

Aria started cackling manically, an experience all too familiar for Shepard, who had suffered the maniacal cacklings of the Illusive Man not yesterday. Something about Shepard's statement was inexplicably funny to her and she stopped laughing, taking a breath. Hands out-stretched, she gestured to the rest of Afterlife and cried low, " **I** **AM** **OMEGA!** "

Shepard sighed. He thought of a positive spin on the situation: at least he'd gotten drunk before this! "Here I was, thinking you were just the _Queen_ of Omega. I feel silly."

Aria shrugged, shifting in her seat. "Well, that too."

"This is a pretty shitty kingdom you have here." He paused and held up his hands in surrender. "No offense, Your Majesty."

Aria turned back to the commander, seemingly only just remembering he was there. "Of course, Queen of Omega is just a title. Omega has no true titled ruler and only one rule."

"Oh?"

Aria smirked and spoke through grit teeth, "Don't. Fuck. With. Aria."

Shepard nodded, seeing the wisdom in this. "It's the same on my ship, but it goes unspoken."

"Don't worry," she giggled disturbingly and clapped her hands, "if you forget, someone will remind you!"

"And then I punt your ass like a dog out the nearest airlock," said the batarian with the omni-tool from earlier.

Shepard squinted at the batarian warily. "You punt dogs?"

"What?" He scratched his head, four eyes blinking in confusion. "No."

"That's just cruel and unusual," Shepard said and shook his head, disappointed. "Batarians _._ Well, Aria, I should get to the point before my friend over there gets impatient and shoots me in my head."

"I would never do that," Miranda insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. "That head was a significant investment. Besides, the insurance policy the Illusive Man took out on your head only pays off if it gets damaged during a firefight between French revolutionaries and Blasto the Magnificent." The music in the club came to an abrupt stop as everyone in the vicinity, including the DJ, paused to have a moment of quiet reverence for Blasto. Aria tapped her fingers on her leg impatiently. "Or by racist batarians, of course," Miranda finished.

"Hey!" The batarian off to the left with the omni-tool shouted, and was promptly ignored.

"That's—" The commander cut himself off, considering that. "That's oddly comforting, that he has that much faith in me. I mean, seriously, what are the chances of something like _that_ ever happening, and then my head being caught in the middle of it?"

"Well we do expect you to save the galaxy," Miranda muttered off to the side. "No pressure. I'm sure you'll get around to it _someday._ "

Aria tsked like a hen and turned to Shepard. "I never let my subordinates talk back to me like that. You're far too generous."

Shepard sighed sadly. "I know. I'm such a bleeding heart. Anyway, have you heard of a salarian doctor named Mordin Solus? Or what about a vigilante named Archangel?"

Aria nodded. "Oh yes. Mordin's super fun, we used to hang out some. He's former STG, I think. I always liked him – he was just as likely to heal you as he was to shoot you. Just don't get him talking, though. He _never_ shuts up."

"Sounds like a fun guy. Can his friend point me his way?"

"Of course! Last I heard of him, he was in the plague zone, surrounded by enemy mercs, vicious vorcha, and desperate looters."

Shepard blinked, taking that in. "That's something. What about Archangel?"

Aria shrugged. "Last I heard of that jerkoff, he was slumming around Omega, picking on merc gangs. He pissed them off enough that they've rallied around each other to take him down. He's been kicking their filthy asses, so the groups have taken to hiring freelancers – there's a recruiting station just right over there," she gestured vaguely, shrugging. "He never really bothered me, Archangel. I guess he had enough sense not to challenge me."

"Maybe he's heard of Omega's one rule?" Shepard suggested. "What merc groups are after the guy?"

She shrugged, apathetic. "Oh, the usual. Blue Suns, Blood Pack, and that other one. Eclipse, I think. Whatever."

Shepard sighed again, rubbing his forehead in stress. "I'm _really_ glad I got drunk before this." He looked to Aria and nodded gratefully. "Thanks for the information. What's it going to cost me?"

The asari looked at him strangely. "For a famous Spectre? Nothing. I don't charge celebrities."

"Good, since I wasn't going to pay you." He stood up, cracked his neck, and left the back area of Afterlife with Miranda on his tail. He turned to her. "Sounds like we should find the good doctor soon."

Miranda looked at him like he'd grown a cancerous growth on the side of his head, and it was named Carl, and Carl enjoyed Cheetos and long walks on the beach, and had also started hitting on her. Shepard wasn't sure how Miranda had managed to convey that exact look, but she had somehow perfected it down to an art. "Uh, chasing after Archangel would make more sense. With all due respect, Commander, the vigilante may not have much time left, if what Aria said was true. He's got the three largest mercenary groups in Omega out for his blood."

Now it was Shepard's turn to look at her like she'd grown a cancerous growth on the side of _her_ head – a much cuter and bitchier one, named Carlette. "Yes, exactly. That's what we're not going after him. What part of that is hard to understand?"

Miranda opened her mouth to object but closed it with a click when she realized the Commander was being serious. She couldn't believe it. "Are you being serious?"

"I'm always serious," he said loftily. "I'm not pissing off all of those guys unless I've got a flamethrower on me. Or maybe a mini-nuke," he added, with a wistful look ceiling-ward. "I'm not _crazy_."

Miranda sighed and made a mental note to request a transfer from the Illusive Man when they got back to the _Normandy._ _If_ they got back to the _Normandy_. She knew in her heart that she wouldn't qualify for a transfer, but it was something to hope for. She told her commander, "Then we should find Jacob and head to the plague zone."

"Find who?" Jacob asked, popping up in the middle of virtually nowhere. Miranda yelped but oddly, Shepard seemed kosher.

"Finish your drink?" The Commander asked.

Jacob nodded. "Yup. So what'd the asari have to say?"

"Nothing we weren't expecting," Shepard said with an eye-roll. "Mordin Solus is in the middle of a plague zone, filled with vorcha and angry Blue Suns, in addition to a great deal of diseased refugees who have reason to not be happy with us as well, as we're going to be relieving their homes of all valuables – oh, and apparently Dr. Solus is former STG, extremely talkative, and possibly violent. We're not sure, Aria wasn't clear on that."

Jacob scratched his shaved head. "Oh shit. I'm glad I got drunk before this."

"You and me both, Taylor," Shepard agreed wholeheartedly. "Let's move."

The three commandos made their way out of the noisy nightclub to the entrance of Omega's favorite plague zone, but before they could get there – oh no! An obstruction!

"What's all this?" Shepard demanded. A human woman was complaining about the turian in front of her not letting her into the plague zone, since she couldn't get her stuff before looters got to it. Apparently.

"Look, lady, this area's on lockdown," the turian guard told her flatly. "I can't let you in."

"But—my apartment! All my good shit! What about all my weed – looters are gonna get it! I need to get in there, you jackass! Humans aren't even affected by the plague, just _let me in, for Christ's sake!_ " She looked like she was about to burst into angry tears.

"So you're not letting _anyone_ in?" Shepard surmised, cutting in.

"Yes, finally, a human that can hear!" The guard cried in turian relief. "The whole place is on lockdown until the plague is over. It sucks to be you, lady, but your apartment is lost, and so is all your pot. I can't let you or anybody else in. That'd just be darned inconsistent of me, wouldn't it?"

John Shepard nodded. "That's an interesting point, my good man. Let me present my counterpoint." He pulled out his grenade launcher and gestured appreciatively. "I call this my 'problem-solver,' because it solves problems. Now, it sounds to me like your district's got a lot of problems and not enough explosions. I can fix that."

The turian shrugged, eyeing the launcher. "Sounds good. You can go in."

The human woman gasped in dismay, sticking her finger in the guard's face. "WHAT? You're letting _him_ in but not me? You inconsistent son of a bitch!"

He laughed. "You don't have a grenade launcher. Get lost."

She grumbled about her apartment some more. Shepard, tired of the grumbling, asked, "Where's your apartment, miss? I can fix that problem too, if you want."

"Like it matters anymore," she growled. "407A. Vorcha probably got to it now. Stupid . . . mrglrlflgrb . . . gonna get off this station . . . horse he rode in on . . . ."

Shepard watched her leave and once she did, he turned to the turian confidentially. "I'm gonna loot the hell out of her apartment," he confided.

The turian laughed nervously, still eyeing the launcher. "Okay. Sure."

"Dibs on the weed!" Jacob cried, hand shooting into the air.

Meanwhile Miranda, who had been forgotten momentarily, sulked about her rapidly vanishing self-esteem and the impending doom of the galaxy.

* * *

"Ew." Miranda scrunched her delicate nose. Several large piles of bodies were being burnt throughout the zone. The entire place seemed to have devolved into a miniature third-world-country inside of the third-world-country that Omega currently was. In other words, it was a personal sci-fi Gehenna. "This stench will never wash out of my suit."

"They're trying to confine the plague," Shepard murmured. He kicked over the arm of a batarian who'd caught the plague back into its pyre. "Or they drank bad beer and morphed into cavemen."

"What?"

"Nevermind. We should—"

"Hey look," Jacob pointed. "Survivor!"

Shepard looked around enthusiastically. They'd been trying to find a survivor with good directional skills for a good fifteen minutes, since they were lost and didn't know the way to Grandma Solus' place, and also because the last survivor died on them when he didn't know where Mordin Solus was. Shepard became very less enthusiastic when he discovered that the survivor was a batarian, but because he didn't want to be accused of being racist and didn't follow the stereotype of men who always think they know where they're going, he went to the rescue.

"Hey," he said, kneeling down to the sick alien's level.

"Looters," the batarian sneered, coughing. "Humans, too. First you give us the plague and then you come to rob me of my possessions as I lay dying right here. Fantastic."

"That's a very pessimistic world-view," Shepard commented. "I don't usually get this bad until I've sobered up."

"Make your jokes," the batarian retorted and then went into a coughing fit. Shepard paid it no mind, since humans were immune.

"No," Miranda commented, "it's true. He's terrible when he's sober. Just as his yeoman, Chambers."

"Who?"

"I'll tell you later when you're sober, Commander."

Meanwhile, the batarian was foaming at the mouth. Shepard took pity on the bastard and slapped a medi-gel on his face, which healed him like magic.

"Huh." The sick alien looked around the shitty world around him with renewed vigor. "Didn't expect a human to help me."

"I didn't expect to help a grouchy batarian, so we're even. Now listen, I'm trying to find a guy named Mordin Solus. Know him?"

The batarian snorted, kicking at the ground. "The human sympathizer. He runs a clinic in the lower levels. You'll find him there. He killed a bunch of Blue Sun mercs in cold blood, so I was always afraid to go near him, in case he went homicidal."

"That's stupid," Shepard pointed out. "Especially because you're dying and fuck."

"You're right, human," the batarian nodded, getting a dose of Shepard's immutable wisdom. "I'll go to him after this."

"No you won't," Shepard disagreed, "because you'll get lazy and forget I even mentioned it. Then you'll just sit here and vegetate until you drop dead."

"You're right, I will." The batarian plopped back down and adopted a bored look.

The commander sighed. "Sucker for peer pressure. It takes all kinds. Listen, guy, if I remember, I'll ask Mordin to send help when I find him. Now which one of these is your apartment?"

"That one," the sick batarian gestured. "Don't rob it, okay?"

"I won't," Shepard smiled.

And then he robbed the apartment.

"This is immoral of you, you know," Miranda commented.

Shepard and Jacob stared at her for a few seconds before bursting into hysterical laughter at the Cerberus Operative. She rolled her eyes and decided to keep her moral outrage where it belonged, bottled up and locked away in a place where no one would ever find it – her diary, in her office, back on the Normandy.

After looting every single apartment they could find, it was to no one's great surprise but Shepard's when they came across other looters who had the same idea that the ex-Spectre had.

"Huh," said one of the two human looters.

Shepard, being a reasonable and rational and not-at-all-inebriated human being, shot them in the face on the spot. When reached for questions later, the galactic badass would comment, 'I don't like looters.' Which was true, of course – Shepard did not like looters; he did not consider what he did looting, but 'liberating.' And he liberated everything both nailed down and on fire whenever apropos. When accused of the hypocrisy of this statement, the Commander would simply stare blankly into the soul of the questioner until they walked away, utterly unnerved.

After mowing down fields of vorcha and Blue Suns, the team inevitably came across Mordin Solus' (in)famous clinic. It was also inevitable that after they made their way through the circuitous clinic they would come across Mordin Solus' (in)famous self.

Since of course all knowledge of proper social decorum was defenestrated when Shepard came across a drink, the armored N7 walked right into the middle of the situation, waved and said, "Jesus, you know you've got a real vorcha problem out there? They're banging on the door."

"Not Jesus, _Solus._ Solus," Mordin corrected quickly. "Heard the racket, assumed vorcha, could eliminate myself but too busy and otherwise waste of mechs. Easier to ignore." Mordin said this almost too abruptly for anyone to really follow – his speech seemed to be on an entirely different metronome than anyone else's – a metronome that was on coffee and run by hamsters on wheels. Shepard, however, rolled with the punches and accepted this as what Aria had called Mordin's 'speech problem.'

Before Shepard could open his mouth to say something else, Professor Solus spat out a drink that he was apparently having difficulty getting down. "Ah!" the dark-eyed salarian cried. "Wanted _double espresso_! No decaf!  Must shoot intern! Wait, nonono, can't shoot intern, need extra hands for clinic. Problematic. Get mechs to shoot intern later. Who's this?" He turned instead to the heavily armed newcomers, making an imperceptible move with his omni-tool. "Hmm . . . obviously disgruntled, well-groomed, not Jehovah's Witness, no Gideon Bibles, alcohol on breath and suggestive outfit on female indicate not Mormon. Unlikely Blue Suns, too well-armed. N7 armor indicates Alliance? No, weapons non-standard, all-human crew, likely human-centric interest group." Mordin breathed in sharply through the noise. "Possibly Cerberus?"

Shepard was confused, needless to say. "Was that a question?" He honestly inquired. "It, er didn't sound like one."

"How can everyone tell that we're Cerberus a glance?" Miranda roared. "We're a covert group!"

"Please," Mordin Solus chuckled, "speculation was only show! Saw the logos. You also confirmed just now."

"But we're _covert_ ," she stressed.

Mordin laughed in her face. "Not covert enough. Time in STG made covert standard. Purpose here, I may ask?"

"We need you for a, uh, _covert_ mission," Shepard said, trying not to laugh. Miranda rolled her eyes, determined to bring this up at a later date when Shepard was sober. "I'm Commander Shepard and I need you on my crew to solve a dastardly mystery."

Mordin objected to that, looking up quickly from whatever inexplicable work he was doing on his laptop. "Mission? What mission? Mission Vao? A Spanish mission? Shameful, Alamo reference obscure, not towards target audience, pointless, irrelevant! No, no, no, no! Need to cure Plague first. Priority."

Shepard pulled out the big guns: "We're going after the Collectors. They've been _covertly_ kidnapping entire human colonies."

Jacob couldn't hold it in and started laughing. Shepard kept a straight face, which was a feat, considering the large amount of alcohol he'd taken in only an hour or two of looting and killing mercs before.

Mordin looked intrigued, given that crossing one's arms and tapping one's chin was the universal sign of intrigue. "Collectors possibly orchestrated plague. One of my theories. No matter! Need to stop."

"Right, I know the drill," John Shepard said, stifling a sigh. "It's not like anyone can just drop everything and say right then, 'hey John, I'm good, I'm ready to kick ass with you.' Everything has strings attached."

Mordin gave a hint of a smile. "Life a negotiation. We all want, and must therefore give to get what is wanted."

"I'm sorry, I'm too drunk to listen to philosophy," Shepard apologized.

"Common symptom," Solus sympathized.

"I have guns, though, and I'm good at pointing them at things. I also have two terror specialists with me who are, eh, trained in _covert operations_ –" Miranda scowled deeper and Jacob unsuccessfully stifled a snort "—and I have a grenade launcher I've been using to explode mercs by the dozens. If my skills can help with curing the plague and getting you to work for us, then I'm on board."

"Good!" Mordin cried. "Need to get to plague center with plague cure. Guarded by many vorcha." Another sharp intake of breath. "Need to kill them."

Commander Shepard cracked his knuckles. "Consider them dead."

The doctor/professor handed a small vial to the Commander. "Here is plague cure. Please distribute it at air supply enter. No need for directions, easy to find, right in middle of everything. Also, bonus in good faith – take gun from dead Blue Suns merc. Mind blood stains."

It was common knowledge that Commander Shepard's idea of decoration involved extensive blood stains, since he considered them to be feng shui, and also learned everything he knew about interior decorating from Urdnot Wrex. "I never do," he admitted honestly, taking the modded gun. "Anything else?"

"One more thing! Assistant missing. Daniel. Stupid, stupid Daniel," he sighed. "Seeking refuge. Bringing cure to batarians. Didn't realize batarians inherently racist! May be captured by Blue Suns or angry batarians, either one. Should be still alive. Probably."

"If he's alive and we come across him, I'll _maybe_ get him back to you. My attention span hasn't been so good today, so that's all I can promise," he explained.

"Good enough. Bye-bye, have fun storming the vorcha!" And then the fast-talking salarian went back to work, apparently forgetting there were other people around.

Shepard and his posse then headed off to do just that. "Wow," Shepard remarked, "I really like that guy." His face scrunched up in thought as he struggled to remember something. "What am I forgetting? I know there was something else I was supposed to do here."

He then snapped his fingers and bolted back to the Professor. "Got it! There's a sick, racist batarian hanging out by the entrance to these slums. He needs medical atten—ah, forget it," he gave up as he saw the Professor blissfully typing away at his computer, lost in a scientific trance.

A few minutes later while Shepard and his crew were busily robbing everything nailed down, on fire or otherwise, they ran into yet _another_ group of angry batarians shaking down a human.

Shepard was about to give up and just declare himself racist but ultimately decided not to draw his gun, since it was less effort. Besides, Miranda was getting plenty worked up for the lot of them.

Still, "Can't you batarians find something better to do than harass humans?" Shepard whined.

The batarians grabbed the human they were threatening by the scruff of the neck and held him forward, pointing a gun to his head. "More humans! Come to spread the plague!"

"You've already got plague, man," Jacob said needlessly.

"Big people are talking," Shepard warned, and Taylor shut up dutifully.

"Right, sorry sir."

"Now, you fellows here," the former marine pointed and slowly, coolly drew his pistol to point it at the batarian holding the human's head, "are making a big mistake. Drop your weapons."

"Drop _yours_ ," one of the batarians growled.

"You first," Lawson said coldly, biotics flaring up.

"Let's not be h-h-hasty," the human stuttered, voice cracking.

"Don't talk," Shepard told him. "The hell would we spread the plague for, anyway? We don't hate you as nearly as much as you hate us."

The batarian holding the hostage growled, clenching the terrified man closer. He let out a scared meep. "Racist lies!"

Shepard had had enough and gritted his teeth, pointing his gun at the light overhead. He shot at it until his rage was sated, startling everyone in the room into panic. "Yes, you know what?" He hissed, unwillingly forcing himself into his mean-drunk mode, "I _am_ racist. Against _you._ Because I've been threatened, attacked, scanned, and outright been poisoned by enough racist batarians on this goddamn station to admit that yes, I've had a bad, traumatic experience here on Omega, and it has made me racist. Racist against goddamn asshole batarians like you. So let that hostage go right now or I swear to you, I will kill all of you."

The batarian paused, taking in that speech. "And . . . what happens to us if we let him go?"

"We still may kill you if we feel like it, but there's a slight chance of it putting us in a good mood," Miranda answered, finishing Shepard's thought.

"Not a lot of leeway," one of the other batarians said to the lead one holding the hostage.

"It's all you getting," the commander snarled.

"Plus," another one stated, shifting from foot to foot, "why would a human come all the way out here to spread the plague anyway? That doesn't make sense."

"I-I-I've t-told you," the hostage stuttered, "it-it's the cure, it's in those vi-vials!"

"Whatever," the gun-to-head batarian muttered.

He looked the fearless commander in the eye, glared, and released the human. The terrified little man scuttled over behind his burly human defender. A stare-down ensued between Shepard and the crazed batarian, and Shepard's trigger finger began to twitch and clench compulsively.

Gradually and reluctantly, the commander began to lower his gun.

"We can go?" The group of batarians cheered and bolted out the door. Miranda and Jacob put their weapons away, looking to their commander, confused.

Shepard holstered his pistol and looked down at the terrorized hostage. "You really should've known better. Batarians are racist motherfuckers."

"Y-yeah," the man stuttered. "I know that know. Thanks for saving me. I'm Daniel."

"Why _did_ you save him, anyway?" Miranda had to wonder. "I thought we were killing them."

"I was all geared up," Jacob complained.

"It was less effort to let them go," he replied. He turned back to Daniel. "You're Mordin's assistant, right? Get out, ya scamp."

"I'm outta here," Daniel announced scampered away, taking his briefcase of plague-cure with him.

Miranda Lawson stared at Commander Shepard, thinking she might begin to see him in a new light. "Letting someone live because they aren't worth the effort it takes to kill them is . . . new." Not a good new light, necessarily, but a new one.

The powerful posse looted and shot their way through to the heart of vorcha territory, the air supply center. The sight before them was terrible and smelly. 'Guarded by _many vorcha_,' the Professor had said. By many, he meant of course every single vorcha on the face of Omega screeching themselves into formation and collectively pointing their measly, ugly guns at Shepard's heavily insured head.

"Well," the Commander said blithely, determined to find a bright side to this turn of events, "at least my head is insured against this."

"Only if we're facing French revolutionaries, apotheosized hanar, or racist batarians," reminded Miranda, which made Shepard sad because he knew she was right. "Try not to damage the Illusive Man's investment," she smirked and snapped a thermal clip into her pistol. She nodded to Jacob, who cocked his gun and nodded to the Commander.

Shepard tore out his problem-solvin' grenade launcher, readied a battle-cry, and they charged.

And that was when Shepard realized that Mordin Solus was a little asshole.


	5. Freelancer Death Conga

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MFJ's having an all too familiar conundrum. As of this moment this story has six kudos and not one comment, bookmark, or whatever the shit. Not one, despite the number of hits. Now, I refuse to accept that my god-awful writing is driving people away, and while I'm not a review whore, I don't like feeling as though I'm shouting into a sound-proof room. It's getting a little eerie. There are only two excuses that I accept: that the people who read this lack the manual dexterity necessary to click that little button over in the corner because their hands were chopped off by a bloodthirsty loanshark named Popeye . . . or that all the people who read this spontaneously combust after reading the first chapter. As I said on FF, I can understand the latter excuse, as your gooey remains will obviously have some difficulty clicking/typing; if it's the former excuse, then I suppose I'm best remembering you as you were: lazy and handless.

* * *

"You **little asshole**!" Shepard roared.

"Nonono, Solus. _Solus_ ," The Original Scientist Salarian corrected, looking up from his work mildly, as if he experienced this brand of outrage on a daily basis. "Could swear gone over this before. No matter, all systems online, cure in ventilation shafts, piles of dead vorcha, French revolution put down, all in time for victory lap." The not-so-good doctor smiled. "Success on all fronts. Impressive, Shepard."

_Earlier . . ._

The three commandos stood apart to examine the gory spectacle before them, each with an equal share of fear and pride.

Amidst the sheer carnage were random party streamers, one futon, seven hundred pairs of beer goggles, eighty and one half funnels, an abhorrent number of jogging shorts, and a large quantity of dead French revolutionaries.

Dominating the landscape were the monstrous amounts of dead vorcha, the likes of which hadn't been seen outside of a Collector vessel. The heaps and loads and piles of dead vorcha were the metal that legends were forged from; the Commander could foresee that in the future, some nameless monk in a chilly monastery would dedicate a tirelessly detailed epic poem called _Sheowulf_ to him, depicting this very battle on Omega.

The only question was the untellable tale of how it had all gone down. Of that, our heroes had this to say:

"Well, that was the most surreal experience I think I've ever had," Shepard marveled, eyes as wide as saucers. "I don't even know what just happened only that I'm pretty sure that a shark named Chekhov was just jumped right the hell over. It doesn't even seem physically possible!"

Shepard had to dodge a flying brick then that a half-gored vorcha in beer goggles lobbed at him from behind the lone futon. He promptly shot the nasty jerk down. "Blarg!" It cried before dying (which might have meant, 'Vive la Révolution _,_ ' in his native tongue, but there are none remain who know.).

 _Sheowulf_ turned back to his companions, who were still pretty petrified about the whole incident. "I don't really know. What about you two?"

"I'm scarred for life," Jacob announced.

"I think I'm standing in Jacob's vomit," Miranda announced.

"Roger. Let's get outta here," Shepard announced. "I've got a Professor to yell at."

And so Commander John Shepard, N7 marine, first human Spectre, proud fiend of slavers, grudging savior of the galaxy, professional armed lunatic and notorious bamf, stormed into the clinic of Professor-Doctor Mordin Solus, Model Scientist Salarian, in a fit of pique. The Commander was lost somewhere between brain-hemorrhaging and peculiar state of being known only as 'dander.'

He had marched into the office of the Salarian Himself and worked himself into a good, healthy rage while his two companions appraised their surroundings disinterestedly, apparently having gotten over the distressing incident from before (or in Jacob's case, totally forgotten about it).

With everything now up to speed, Shepard, meanwhile, was in a huff. "Let's get back to the part where you're a little asshole for not warning me about the vorcha horde."

"Vorcha which are now in _heaps_ , and very _dead_ ," Mordin emphasized, holding up a finger. Before the Commander could let off another angry retort the scientist turned around and gestured to several bags congregated at his feet like teens at a mall. "Been packing while you were away. Ready to board _Normandy_! Excited to be working with Cerberus. New. Should be interesting."

Miranda Lawson perked up at this. "I'm glad you feel that way, Professor Solus. We'll meet you on board the ship."

Mordin nodded and headed off, two of his assistants fetching his bags and chasing after him like an afterthought. Shepard and his crew stared after the illustrious doctor with mixed emotions.

After recalling that at no point had he or his head come into any immediate danger during the mini-French revolution (whose explanation mystified Shepard and induced immediate insanity in others), nor had any racist batarians taken any cheap shots lately, Shepard sighed and realized he was out of options. There was no chance at getting back at the Illusive Man for the hefty insurance policy that he'd taken out on Shepard's head. He turned to Jacob. "Remember that ganj you liberated from 407A?"

Jacob frowned, confused. "That shit I looted, you mean?"

"No, liberated. I'm gonna need some of it."

"Sure thing, Commander."

"This galaxy is doomed," Miranda muttered to herself as the one and only Commander Shepard lit up and sailed the Astro Turf.

* * *

"Welcome aboard the _Normandy,_ Professor Solus," EDI greeted as the salarian stepped into the Comm room with Jacob and Shepard. "There is a science lab just east of this communications room, south-east of the CIC, which I have now unlocked for your use."

"Thanks EDI," said Shepard. Before the not-at-all-high-and-excellently-concealing-it-Commander could introduce his lead science officer to the ship's AI, Solus went off like a rocket:

"What's this? Simulated vocal tones, not choppy enough for a VI, maybe, too feminine for your bearded pilot, have to ask – is than an AI?"

Shepard stifled a laugh that threatened to start and never stop. Damn that liberated pot. Jacob glanced over at him, a bit worried, but Shepard shook his head.

"This is EDI," Jacob answered, pointing towards the blue holographic . . . chesspiece . . . that represented EDI's face. EDI promptly logged off, seeing as she was no longer needed.

Mordin shook his head sadly. "Non-human crew, AI aboard vessel, what next? Scottish engineers?" He wondered, voice progressively rising. "Guidance counselors for yeoman? _Cripples_ as pilots? Mariachi in cargo bay?"

Shepard was impressed with this summary. "All but the last, but I like that idea."

"Ah well, should show up in time," the salarian shrugged. "Happens when fourth wall shatters, knowledge of the future inevitable, much like Deadpool. Ha!" He crowed triumphantly. "Reference more towards target audience. Success!"

"Fourth w-what?" Shepard blurted, scratching his head. "And how do you know about Marvel comics? That's from hundreds of years ago. And it's a human thing."

"I don't even know about that stuff," Jacob admitted.

Shepard gave Jacob a disappointed, bitter look. "I'm disappointed in you, Jacob."

"I'll do better next time, sir."

"Doing better only makes me hate you more," the ex-Spectre warned darkly. But then he couldn't help but smile, because he was hopelessly high, and Jacob started choking in laughter.

Mordin, meanwhile, didn't seem to have an answer to the question, opting for a shrug. "I am mad scientist. Took anti-psychosis drug this morning."

"Funny," Shepard deadpanned.

"Meh." The scientist shrugged again. "Would be simpler to lie, especially when lie entertaining."

"Well," Shepard admitted, "I've always thought something being funny was more important than it being true."

Mordin nodded. "Good policy to have. Easier to deal with future events. For you, that is. Now," he clapped his hands together, "to the lab! I must SCIENCE! Collectors to fight, swarms to disseminate, laws of ethics and morality to bend to my mighty whim!" He stalked off towards the science lab in his idiom, Jacob on his heels in case the professor got lost along the way. Shepard did his best not to laugh at this display, instead clearing his throat and keeping a very, very straight face.

"EDI," Shepard called, knowing the AI was always listening, per her orders.

"Yes, Shepard?" Her blue icon popped back up on the edge of the chrome table.

"Tell the others to suit up ASAP, we're going to find Archangel. We'll need Massani's Boba Fett-like expertise on this one."

"Omega reports indicate Archangel is still alive," EDI assured, "and remarkably so, considering the heavy forces dedicated to exterminating him."

"If only I had a flamethrower," Shepard said wistfully, eyes roving upward. "Oh, and remind me to pick up those couplings that our whiny engineers wanted, will you? I'll forget otherwise."

"Very well, Shepard." And with that helpful assurance, she vipped away.

It had only been a very short amount of time and yet Shepard found himself becoming increasingly unbothered with the idea of EDI. Originally he'd balked, since AI were of course, notoriously devious and had a tendency to go mad and take over things, like ships and science facilities, and use those things to kill people; EDI seemed passive, compared to other AI. Then again, who could really say? She was just a computer, after all.

"Maybe it's just me," Shepard spoke into the silence of the room, "or the pot, but I think I'm starting to like her."

* * *

"This place is _such_ a pisshole," Miranda announced, and feeling a sense of déjà vu as the party touched down on Omega once more, absent their newest salarian member, who was busy acquainting himself with the science lab back on the ship. They had all worried for a bit that Cerberus' Wilde-approach to morality and firm disbelief in the laws of ethics would give too much leeway for the mad scientist's Frankenstienesque experiments, however, none of them could find it in their hearts to care enough.

Zaeed Massani, who was standing next to Ms. Lawson, shrugged and cracked his neck sharply. "You get used to it after a while, Princess. It grows on you."

"Like cancer."

"Or Athlete's foot," Jacob supplied helpfully.

"Enough chit-chat," Shepard cut in sharply. His high had had worn off almost completely. "We've got a vigilante to save. If this mission manages to go off without a hitch, I'll buy everyone here a beer in amazement. Hell, we'll have an amazement-binge back at Afterlife. Invite everybody, even the grease monkeys. Except for Donnelly."

"Hold you to that," Zaeed vowed. "I could use a stiff drink right now. Killing mercs always leaves a bad taste in the mouth."

They were all able to sympathize with this. Following that meaningful remark they trotted off to Afterlife, only after Miranda could remind Shepard where exactly the recruiting station had been that Aria T'Loak had pointed out before. It took some hard sleuthing but eventually they managed to listen to Ms. Lawson long enough to locate the recruiting station, and they only had to go back to Aria _once_ in the process.

"Goddamn this ass-backwards map," was all anyone had to say about _that._

The recruiting station in the underbelly of the club was nothing more than a console with a batarian Blue Suns mercenary attached to it. Shepard prayed that this wasn't one of the _many, many, many_ racist batarians on Omega, but a sick part of him hoped he was, just in the off-chance that the guy would get a shot at Shepard's head. Sadly, this was one of the few decent batarians on Omega, and Shepard's head insurance would have to wait another day:

"You sure you're in the right place?" was the first thing the merc said. Shepard just stared and waited for something to happen.

Eventually the batarian became unnerved enough by Shepard's blank stare that he finally asked, "You're looking to join up – freelancers, right? Just so you know this doesn't make you a member of the Blue Suns, Blood Pack, or Eclipse in any way, shape, or form."

The four shared a look. "We are beyond fine with that."

"Good. The pay is four hundred credits, and should you die, no, your companions here will not get your share of the money."

"Oh damn," Miranda said sarcastically, "and here I was thinking of offing them all and running off with the paltry loot."

"It _is_ pretty paltry," Zaeed grumbled, playing along, "but a job's a job. Let's get on with it."

Shepard turned to the batarian, shrugged, and the batarian shrugged right back. "Fine then, you're set. Transportation's outside the club in the docking area – can't miss it. Good luck." And then he went back to typing whatever inexplicable thing it was he was typing on his console.

Before the foursome could storm off to the vigilante's castle and start killing mercs, a kid had to go and get in the way, apparently being aware of the law on Omega that disallowed Shepard from going anywhere unmolested. He barreled right past Shepard and towards the surprised batarian.

"Watch it," the commander growled.

The kid made the fundamental mistake of having a mouth. "Pfft, no, _you_ watch it! I grew up on this station, I have a gun, and I can do what I want—"

"Damn the sense of entitlement the new generation has!" Zaeed growled. "They think they're so clever – I remember when omni-tools weren't a dime a dozen but exclusive tools for the elite! And the _music!_ It's goddamn awful! Nothing but loud noise and shitty beats – that's not music, that's just torture! What ever happened to the crooners? And now every kid over six's got an omni-tool and a pistol and thinks that makes him a man. This whole galaxy is going to hell in a handbasket! Bloody generation ɸ!"

Everyone stared at Massani's sudden and previously unheard-of old-man-syndrome, and Shepard couldn't shake the terrible mental image of the infamous bounty hunter shouting at some darn-tootin' teenagers wrecking his lawn, crackin' wise, and playing their music too loud. Knowing Zaeed, he'd just shoot those darn tootin' teenagers in the face, too, and on that note Shepard decided that playing along was better than making a crack about Zaeed's age, and so, "oh yeah," he agreed. "Remember when all we had to do to anything was slap some omni-gel on it? Vip, fixed. Then I kicked the bucket for a measly two years and suddenly everything's changed. I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Not to mention the rate of inflation has skyrocketed, and now I actually have to have a license to carry weapons out in the open in Citadel space! The future is a fucking nightmare."

"Uh, what?" The batarian said quietly, terribly confused.

"Goddamn right," Zaeed huffed.

Shepard looked to the suddenly bewildered kid, feeling a bit irritated all the sudden. "Gimme that," he snapped, grabbed the gun in the kid's hand. He emptied the clip and smacked it a few times against the brace of his armor, jamming it irreparably. "Get your money back."

"W-what did you do? You jackass!" The kid exclaimed, looking close to tears.

Shepard rolled his eyes and he heard the batarian recruiter sigh, muttering about holding up the line.

"What does it look like? I broke your gun. You'll thank me for it one day."

"Damn right he will," Zaeed said, impossibly more huffy and senior-citizen-y than he was before. "He just saved your worthless hide, kid, whether you know it or not. Kids these days . . . it's the music, I swear."

Instead of giving the annoying kid an opportunity to respond Shepard and his crew moved out, eager to get on with this mission and the possible amazement-binge he had promised them all afterwards. Even Miranda was looking forward to it – not that she'd ever admit it out loud, of course.

Outside the club and sort of off to the right was a Blue Suns batarian perched by what was _generously_ called 'transport.' Shepard was a bit uneasy about getting into the flying tin can (for that was what it resembled) but figured when in Omega, does at the Omegans. Omegians. Omegese?

Whatever the term was, the commander and his posse sans Miranda were _not_ excited by the marvel of technology before them (read: death trap) and seriously debated whether or not to just call the mission a failure already, pretend that this faceless Archangel fellow was already dead, and head on home.

Shepard even had a few good arguments stacked against doing the mission at all; all the time they had spent just looking for the correct place to sign up as a freelancer, not to mention all the spiteful witty banter that occurred pointlessly during. The whole thing was just looking worse and worse the more Shepard looked into it and he even offered to change the name of his afore-promised amazement-binge to "who gives a shit" –binge.

Sadly, Miranda won out: "Shepard, if you don't go through with this I'm going to convince the Illusive Man to ban all alcoholic beverages aboard the _Normandy_."

He and Zaeed stared at her in horror. Then, when Jacob realized what was going on a few seconds later, he stared in horror too.

"Are you completely fucking blown?" Zaeed spluttered. "And since when is Princess driving this bus, Shepard? . . . Shepard?"

Shepard could only stare, caught between a fundamental inability to process what he had just heard and galaxy-swallowing rage. In other words, he was in a fit of pique.

"She'll do it," Jacob promised, "she's crazy! This is _exactly_ how the original Lazarus station wound up all booze-free and mandatory-pants and all shit. And then later, on the Enterprise! That was such bullsh— man, don't test her, Commander, don't do it, it ain't worth it!"

"I will do it," Miranda vowed, getting a wild look in her eyes. "I swear to God. It'll happen _if_ this mission doesn't pull through. Not. A single. Drop. Of alcohol. Not one sip of wine, not one vodka chaser, not one tequila slammer, one shot of whiskey. Not anything. _Ever._ "

Clinically unable to face the possibility of Cerberus taking away one of the only things that made him happy anymore, Shepard had to acquiesce. There was no other choice. "Fine," Shepard spat, "but no victory-party for Miranda. _She_ can sit this one out with EDI. Everybody, into the death trap."

Miranda was left to sulk inwardly and convince herself over and over that it was worth it, even if she had to paint herself into the bad guy. _I still can't believe this is the man responsible for saving the galaxy._

"Are you fellas done arguing yet?" The batarian Blue Suns driver asked. He stamped his feet and gestured wildly, momentarily confusing himself for an Italian.

"We're done," replied the commander, who was still more than a bit miffed at Miranda's threat, and off they went to save themselves a vigilante. (Albeit reluctantly.)

The ride wasn't without its perks, if your name was Zaeed Massani. He was very entertained by the non-stop bickering going on between the young'uns – Jacob for the most part tried to remain uninvolved but ended up getting dragged right back into the argument by Miranda. The commander was still grousing about Ms. Lawson's threat and she was simply trying to defend her claim. Of course halfway through, their grouchy batarian chauffeur had to step in, "if you chillums don't settle down I am turning this car _around_ ," -to which there was much grumbling, under-the-breath-cursing, and on Shepard's part, optimistic reminders about how all the mercs would soon be dead, so it was all okay.

Upon arrival to Archangel's base they encountered a hapless merc by the name of Salkie.

 _Salkie._ Got it?

"Okay, Sulky," said Shepard. "What's the plan?"

"Salkie," the batarian corrected, "and it's pretty simple. We're going to point you guys straight at Archangel and have you run as fast as possible, single-file, in the hopes that you'll clog the barrel of his rifle with your remains once he obliterates you. It should work, if you maneuver yourselves into his line of fire correctly. And during the time that it takes him to clean out the barrel of his gun, we'll try to kill him with laughter."

Oh, how they laughed.

"You are such a jokester," John Shepard chuckled, "but seriously, Salty, what's the plan?"

Salkie blinked, oblivious to the great big joke.

"Commander, I think he's being serious," Miranda said, eyes slowly widening in realization.

"My God," he muttered.

Zaeed grunted, apparently having danced this dance before. "Blue fucking Suns! Should've known better. Only mercs get this stupid when they're desperate."

"Oh, we're desperate all right," Sulky assured them. "We wouldn't have hooked with the Blood Pack and Eclipse if we weren't. Everyone wants this guy dead, dead, dead. Now head on down to see Sergeant Cathka. He'll give you your orders – you shouldn't have too trouble since you look _slightly_ less mediocre than the usual through traffic."

"Sure, Sulky, sure," Shepard said uneasily and they stepped passed him into the foyer, no longer finding the whole thing funny but sad.

"It's Salkie, and remember," Sulky called after him, "clog the barrel!"

"Will do, Salty." Once they were out of earshot of the batarian they all turned to each other with mixed looks of confusion, anger, and bafflement.

"Zaeed," Shepard turned to their resident bounty hunter, "status report."

"Getting in will be easy," the aged ex-mercenary told everyone, "all we got to do is shove all the other sheep into golden boy's line of fire. Long as he focuses on them, we'll be in the clear. Getting out's gonna be the real bitch."

Miranda shrugged. "We'll have to cross that bridge when it comes, I suppose."

"Jacob?" The commander turned to their special friend, who was neutrally observing his surroundings with his usual detached ignorance. "You've been quiet throughout all this. You have anything to add to this discussion?"

"Nah," the spandex-clad operative dismissed and scratched his bald head. "Not really. I'm hungry, though."

Shepard fixed Miranda with a glare, clucking like a disapproving hen. "I _told_ you he'd want a snack. Why didn't you bring snacks?"

"That's not in my job description," she said tartly, brushing her dark hair back from her shoulder.

"Dammit," he swore, dropping his head, "now _I'm_ hungry too. All right, let's hurry this up and recruit Archangel so we can go back and get some food."

Down the street and through a series of needlessly circuitous hallways (only after, of course, rooting around through the mercs' gear when their backs were turned and viciously sabotaging an unattended YMIR Mech), the powerful posse eventually came across a barricade loaded with cheap/suicidal freelancers, and a group of Blue Suns off to the left camped around a sparking gunship like homeless men at Spacebucks™.

After wisely determining that the other freelancers were too stupid to live, and thus too stupid to milk information from, they asked the Blue Suns where Cathka was. One of them was white and had an afro, which nearly caused Jacob to go berserk.

Sergeant Cathka was a batarian, to no one's surprise, but to everyone's surprise he wasn't racist. "You must be the one's Salkie told me about. Hi," he greeted, offering a friendly hand.

Shepard shook it, too stunned for words. He took a few seconds to recover. "Who's Salkie?"

"Guy you met on the way in. You four sort of . . . stand out in a crowd, so he radioed ahead to let me know you were coming. Any questions?" He lit up a cigarette and offered one to the undercover Spectre, who took it gratefully.

"Well," John began, "a desperate part of me was hoping that Salty was joking about the plan. He wasn't, was he?"

"Nope," Cathka assured. "My advice? Stay in the back of the death-conga. You guys aren't just fodder, though – no offense."

"None taken."

"I'm professional fodder," Jacob said, a little _too_ cheerfully.

" _Snacks_ ," Shepard whispered harshly and Miranda rolled her eyes.

"Good for you," Cathka said with much less cheer. "Anyway, you fellows are a distraction for the infiltration team that's trying to get through the tunnels of the Archangel's base. Hopefully before too many of you get killed, we'll be able to get in a decent shot." He paused, glancing at the sparking mechanical heap next to him that must, at one point, have been a gunship. He blew out a cloud of smoke slowly, pensively. "Between you and me, I wouldn't count on either plan succeeding. The wigs are letting hotter heads prevail down here."

Shepard snorted derisively. "That's the biggest understatement I've heard since someone called Miranda artificial."

The Aussie pouted. "Hey!"

Cathka shook his head with a chuckle. "Anyway, I'd better get going if you don't have any more questions. Gotta get this gunship fixed before Tarak has my head. Guess I'm lucky I don't have to fight."

"How did that happen, anyway?" the former marine gestured. "Looks like it pissed off the wrong grizzly bear."

"Close enough," the batarian said gravely. "Archangel happened. Guy's an absolute menace! Took this baby down with one shot and it's taken me _days_ to repair it. He's making my job hell, is what he's doing. Hope someone takes him down, even if we aren't the ones that do it."

Shepard was impressed with the wreckage. He saw now that saying a bear had mauled it was an understatement too – it looked more like an elephant and a rhino teamed up and bashed the crap out of it in what must have been the best show of sportsmanship outside of a zoo. He was feeling slightly guilty that he'd put this recruiting mission off, inadvertently placing Archangel's life in more danger than it had already been, since it was now absolutely certain that they _had_ to have this guy on their squad at _all_ costs. _Ah well, what's done is done._

He dropped the cigarette on the ground and crushed it with his boot, but before Shepard could say goodbye to Cathka and be on his way, the batarian's helmet started beeping. After muttering a few things into the radio Cathka turned back to the four. "Looks like the party's starting. Head on over the barricade and work on the distraction. Oh, and try not to die and jazz." The mechanic then made the mistake of turning his back on them yet again.

Miranda elbow-nudged him harshly, and Shepard glared down at her. "What?" She nodded towards the mechanic's undefended back, and Shepard snorted. "No," he said quietly, "you just don't just off a man after he gives you one of his smokes, Miranda. That's not classy. Not to say that someone else can't do it – Zaeed, if you will?"

"Yep," the old Brit nodded and shot the batarian mechanic square in the temple. What with the heavy firing going over the barricade nearby, no one heard one lousy shot going off and a body slumping to the floor.

The four leapt over the barricade at the back of the death conga, just as the freelancers were uneasily shuffling their way into a single-file line. Archangel hadn't started firing yet, apparently too baffled to too busy laughing at the show before him to establish suppressing fire.

"Let's give these filthy bastards what for," Shepard grunted, and then they did.

It was beautiful but brutal, as all battle is in some form. Between the vigilante's shots left and right from his shadowed balcony and the squad's efforts, it was shorter than anticipated. Midway through the fight Archangel zinged the commander with a concussive round, which earned a hate-laced glare balcony-ward and a good, "WE'RE TRYING TO HELP, YOU LOUSY BASTARD!"

Zaeed hadn't been on the squad long enough to learn the tried and true of Shepard and his two Cerberus operatives but he found his niche then, loading off concussives left and right while Shepard gunned the stunned enemies down. They exchanged an awkward white-guy high-five afterwards, which Jacob tried to join in on but refrained when Shepard shook his head. Miranda seemed to have a special grudge against conga-lines and obliterated the single-file formation that the freelancers had formed, slamming poor souls into the floors and walls as fast as her biotics would charge.

When everyone everywhere was dead, they all congratulated each other and headed into the base, hoping that this Archangel fellow was smart enough not to fire on them on sight.

The base was more opulent than they were expecting and further hammered the image of Batman into Shepard's mind – who was a personal, secret hero of the commander, but _sssh don't tell._ They took their time ambling up the steps, admiring the furniture and the like, figuring all significant threats had been downed for the moment, and they could afford to be slow.

Archangel was still crouched over the balcony with his when the four stormed in. "Batma—I mean, Archangel?" Shepard greeted, lowering his weapon and holding up his hands in the universal sign of 'we're cool, dude.'

Archangel motioned for them to be quiet and went back to concentrating on the rifle. After one fired shot and presumably the last and sneakiest freelancer killed, he turned towards his rescuers. Slowly and surely he stalked towards one of the few undamaged couches left and removed his helmet, causing Shepard's zombie brain to short-circuit momentarily.

"Shepard," greeted none other than Garrus Vakarian, the second most infamous turian in the galaxy and the first most infamous living one, "I heard you were dead."

* * *

_**FLASHBACK-JAZZ** _

_Garrus eyed the mangled body of Dr. Heart critically, kicking it a few times just for good measure._

" _Feel better?" Shepard offered._

_The ex-cop shrugged. "Not really. But I don't feel worse, so that's something. I thought it would feel . . . liberating, like something had been pressing down on my chest and I'd finally be able to breathe freely again. Except now I feel the same as I did a few seconds ago."_

_Shepard nodded, the odd look of sympathy coming into his blue eyes. "I hear ya, buddy. Revenge is a bunch of bullshit. Promise me you won't go all crazy-vigilante-justice on me after this, though – Spectre justice is one thing, and personal revenge is another. This was the latter. You shouldn't ever mix the two. There was and is only one Dark Knight and his retirement plan was as shot to the gut, almost literally. I'd hate to have to drag your ass out of that mess."_

" _Okay," the turian agreed easily enough. He looked down at the body and kicked it once more. "You know, I think it's starting to come to me. I think I do feel a bit more relieved now."_

" _It's sinking in," his human friend and commanding officer assured. "Give it some time. I'll go back to the ship and get some dextro-amino-acid-friendly alcohol from Tali. This calls for a drink."_

_Garrus' mandibles twitched, which Shepard took for the turian version of a smile. He clapped his friend on the back. Here, he could tell, was the beginning of a lifelong bromance._

_**END OF JAZZ** _

* * *

"Garrus! Holy shit!" Shepard cried once his brain could function. He embraced the turian warmly who returned the hug a bit awkwardly. Glad to see his friend in one piece though he was, he'd never been as touchy-feely as the rest of these humans – in addition, he'd been under the impression his friend had been dead for the past two years. Seeing him leap over that barricade and come to the rescue brought a lot of old memories back to the surface that he'd buried with Shepard's empty coffin. He'd heard the rumors of Shepard's return, of course, but it was another thing entirely to see him here in person.

It was like nothing had changed at all. Except for the few creepy-as-fuck scars lining his old Commander's face, of course. Those were knew. And they were _glowing._ He didn't know if it was rude or not to ask about it, though, and so decided to settle back into the old routine.

After the hug was finished, and Shepard's two-man-one-woman crew recovered from their shock at seeing _the_ Commander Shepard hug a turian, the time for pleasantries was over.

"How ya been?" Shepard grinned.

Garrus laughed bitterly. "Been holding off three of Omega's biggest merc gangs for the past couple of days. Could be better, could be worse. You sure took your sweet time getting up here, you lazy dick."

Shepard shrugged, and his crew went into shock again – Miranda in particular seemed close to fainting. Garrus and Shepard had long ago built up their rapport, however, and now that it was back in swing, everything would soon be all right again.

"Yeah, well, you nailed me with a few concussive rounds – which really hurt, by the way, ya son of a bitch – so I figure we're even. By the way, how'd you manage to piss off all these merc groups at once?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Zaeed interjected. "That takes some skills, mate. Mercs don't team up to kill just anybody."

Garrus shrugged modestly. "I slept with their wives. Except in Garm's case – he was walking down the street once and I nicked him with a rocket launcher. On accident, of course. Except after he was knocked unconscious by the blast, some jerk came by with a knife and carved my initials into his face. Wasn't me."

"Of course it wasn't," Miranda muttered sarcastically, but no one paid her any mind.

"That happens to me all the time," Shepard agreed. "Except most people are too afraid to retaliate, because I'm Commander fucking Shepard."

"I know right? Garm is too stupid to feel fear. Or he's a psychopath, I can't tell the difference with krogans. Anyway, he's pretty pissed off at me." Garrus shook his head, like the whole thing was sad. "Tell you one thing, though, he comes by me again and I'm hitting him with another rocket. Who knows? Maybe it'll fix up his face after that anonymous soul jacked it up the first time."

The two laughed good-naturedly about this.

"Seriously enough though," said Shepard, cutting to the chase, "I'm here to totally rescue you. Sorry we didn't come sooner – if I'd known you were you, I swear I wouldn't have hesitated. As it stands I'm almost ready to tell Miranda to slap me across the face for it. God knows I'd deserve it." At the lit-up look on Miranda's face, though, he merely shook his head, dashing all her hopes.

Garrus rolled his eyes, snorting. "No you wouldn't, Shepard. I know you, even if you're working with Cerberus now for some reason. Why is that, if I may ask? Didn't you swear a blood oath against ever working with or for them? Claimed that no force on Heaven or Earth, including wild horses, would ever or could ever drag you away into Cerberus' vices?"

Shepard winced at the wording – he'd been very melodramatic, back in the day. "Yeah, but then I kicked the bucket. Some stuff happened. I need your skills on my mission now. The Collectors are kidnapping humans by the _dozens_."

Garrus was appropriately appalled. "Fucking Collectors!"

"I know, _the dicks_ ," his human friend spat angrily. "We've already got a mad scientist performing unholy research to defeat them."

"I was just about to ask if you had one of those."

"We're in business. Anyway, we should get you out of here and then go back to my ship. They revamped the Normandy – it's completely bitchin' now. Joker can't get enough of it."

Garrus blinked, surprised. "Joker's back too?"

"Yeah, and there's a bar." Shepard wiped away a tear that threatened at the edge of his eye, getting all choked up. "It's all I could've ever wanted!" And the he looked at Miranda and Jacob. "Oh, except for Cerberus' shit everywhere, and the Illusive Man on my ass about saving the galaxy _again_."

Garrus leaned back in his seat, plotting. "As long as we deal with at minimum two of the mercenary groups' forces, we should be able to escape. Doesn't matter which, as long as it's soon. They'll know that their infiltration team failed at this point."

"Oh, you knew about that?"

"I killed those guys like an hour ago. They weren't as discreet as they thought." Vakarian adjusted his half-visor pensively. "I say we stay here, hold our position, and wait to strike."

Shepard nodded, pulling out his assault rifle. "Time for a little hands-on warfare."

"Sneaking was never your style, Shepard," the turian scoffed.

"Goddamn right, Garrus."

Garrus gave the turian equivalent of a smile, and began to load his favorite rifle. "Heh. Just like old times."

About an hour into fending off the various merc bands, Shepard's patience was wearing thin. Their sabotaged mech from earlier had done its job cleaning house but it couldn't last forever and eventually exploded into fiery glory. Zaeed even clapped a bit. Garm had attacked shortly thereafter and surprisingly enough, Jacob took care of that one with a biotic throw and a shotgun to the face. Garrus had been right – all it took was a blast from a gun and the krogan's face was fixed. It was just too bad he wouldn't be alive to reap the benefits.

At some point, the Commander got around to yelling at Garrus mid-battle, "DON'T I REMEMBER TELLING YOU EXACTLY _NOT TO BECOME A VIGILANTE?_ JUST IN CASE THIS MIGHT HAPPEN? DIDN'T I SAY JUST THAT?"

To which Garrus had to say: "YOU DIED TWO YEARS AGO – THROW ME A FREAKING BONE!"

At which point, of course, karma had a fit of epilepsy and delivered horrible justice in the form of a rocket launcher to face.

Garrus' face, to be specific.

Shepard nearly had a heart attack. He nearly laid an egg and fell over. He nearly imploded on the spot as he saw Garrus' body go flying across the room and landing helplessly, listlessly, like a ragdoll on the floor. Black blood was spattered everywhere, leaking over everything.

He hadn't be trained to panic, though, and he'd seen worse injuries. He checked Garrus' fluttering pulse briefly before quietly bottling up his rage into a concentrated elixir to lob at his enemies. The gunship that Cathka had been unable to fully repair was looming distastefully out of the window with what was apparently a very angry Tarak at the helm.

He fired at it in-between its cannon's reloads while he ordered Miranda and Jacob to hurl as many warps at it as possible. It wasn't long before the thing was unrecognizable, looking this time like it had been at the ass end of the Prothean extinction. Shepard knew this because he remembered the Prothean extinction due to his inherited memories.

There was another explosion, but it wasn't a beautiful thing. This time, it was something to be ignored – a trifle in the face of Garrus' injuries.

Miranda was already administering as much medi-gel as they had on them and his friend was alive, if barely. Half of his face was completely gone, the skin sticking to the tile like bloody paper – and Shepard wouldn't lie, it looked bad. The rocket had ripped right through Vakarian's shields and left the commander with unpleasant reminders of thresher maws and Akuze.

Shepard radioed the Normandy immediately. "Normandy, we need evac immediately. Prep the med-bay, our vigilante took a rocket to the face."

" _Affirmative, Commander,_ " EDI's voice reported.

"E's not gonna make it," Zaeed muttered while the turian coughed up blood onto the floor.

"Oh yes he will," Shepard growled, pulling the rifle from Garrus' clutches – for some reason, the gun had remained undamaged and Garrus was holding onto it like it was his only lifeline. "He'll fucking make it or I'll kill him myself, and he knows it."

"Sh-Shep-Shepard," Garrus coughed, and Shepard leaned in closer so he could hear. "If-if I die here—"

The commander shook his head violently. "Didn't you just hear me? You're not dying here. That's an order, goddamn it!"

"N-no if . . . if I die here . . . you-you're an asshole—" The rest was cut off by a bout of horrifying, chest-racking coughs, but Shepard knew what he'd meant to say. They could insult each other all day long but at the end, both of them knew it was insincere, and what was really worthwhile went unsaid. Such were the foundations of their bromance.

And there he was, the most famous human in the galaxy, getting all choked up again. "I love you too, man," he sniffled and grabbed Garrus' hand, replacing the rifle as the lifeline. "But really, if you _do_ die here, fuck you."

* * *

Shepard wasn't sure how long it had been – many hours, at least, and he'd been drinking straight the entire time. At some point he went back down to Omega and fetched the couplings for those whiny engineers, he wasn't sure when. He even fetched that bottle of Serrice Ice for the doc to put her into a good mood, but he made a stipulation that she was not to drink it while operating on Garrus' face.

Eventually, Garrus was out of recovery, but there were some side-affects.

"We've done all we can," Jacob assured, weirdly grave, "buuuu _uuuut_ . . ."

"But what?" the commander demanded.

The half of Garrus' face that had been blown of was scarred and repaired with minor cybernetics, making him look like half of a turian Terminator. Shepard couldn't help it, he had to laugh.

"Are you laughing at my pain?" Garrus said, mock-hurt.

Finished chuckling, Shepard shook his head and leveled Jacob with a drunken glare. "Why were you acting like he'd died, huh? Trying to give me another heart attack?"

"I dunno, but I'm pretty high right now."

He sighed. "Dismissed, Mr. Taylor."

The black man saluted and marched out of the comm room, leaving the two friends to catch-up anew.

"I'm still on anesthesia, so I have no idea how bad this is," Garrus assured, pointing to his half-face. "It's not . . . it's not too bad, is it?"

"Hell, man, you were always ugly," Shepard replied bluntly. "But I have it on good authority that some women really dig facial scars."

"Krogan women, maybe," Garrus muttered. "Well, whatever, at least this'll give you a fair chance to pick up chicks – I was getting all the attention back on the original _Normandy_."

Shepard winced, recalling a few incidents. If you'd never played second fiddle to a turian, you wouldn't have understood, but at the time it had forced him reexamine his place in the world. And his self-esteem. "You aren't kidding. Now it's _your_ turn to play _my_ wingman."

"Looking forward to it – once this anesthesia wears off, anyway. Can I assume you know what you're doing with Cerberus?"

Shepard paused, a rare serious look replacing his usual sarcastic mug. "My mother always said that to assume makes an ass out of you and me. Then she whacked me over the head with a gnarled hunk of wood and called me worthless. 'Course this could all just be the cocktails talking."

Garrus tried to understand this, but failed. "I don't get it."

"Human thing. Anyway, you can be pretty positive I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, and that's the way I like it."

"Just like old times," Garrus laughed and made to leave the room. "I'll be in the forward guns pretending to calibrate guns, if you need me."

" _Definitely_ like old times," Shepard agreed, laughing as well. "I'll be the bar pretending to be productive, if you need me."

* * *

The whole affair had put Shepard into a ridiculously good mood. It was the natural detoxification-high a recovering alcoholic experiences after a few weeks of living hell – except it wasn't, because Shepard refused to admit that he was an alcoholic ( **no** ), and was not recovering. He was simply in an ecstatic mood. Things were going so well, Garrus' face was back in order, they were off of Omega hopefully for good, he was happily drunk, the crew was doing such a good job. Shepard honestly felt everyone deserved a reward, even after the victory-party at Afterlife for everyone minus Miranda.

That's why he made the Announcement.

Miranda, meanwhile, was not in a good mood. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The mission had been an outstanding success, given that Mordin Solus and the vigilante Archangel had both been recruiting – discovering that Archangel was Garrus Vakarian only made things better, as Vakarian's presence on the ship would provide a measure of comfort to Shepard, if their heightened familiarity with each other meant anything. She had sent the report to the Illusive Man and expected him to be pleased with their progress so far – everything was going well, that is until Shepard had to make the Announcement.

It was enough to make her want to cry, but that was beneath Miranda Lawson. Instead, she picked up her chair with biotics and lobbed it over her desk at the door, feeling defeated as it clattered to the ground, bent and broken. This went against every regulation she could make up. This was not how Shepard was supposed to be. This was not the man she had expected. This was _not_ how things were supposed to be run aboard this ship. This was _not_ the man who was going to assemble a crack team and save the galaxy. It just couldn't be. He was just so . . . so . . . detestable! So infuriatingly detestable!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" She roared, clutching at her hair.

Enough was enough.

* * *

" _Attention crew, this is Commander Shepard. Due to the recent_ astounding _successes aboard this ship, and the general excellence with which you are all going about your jobs,_ pants _are no longer mandatory on Tuesdays. Tuesdays aboard the Normandy are hereby deemed No-Pants Tuesdays. Strictly on Tuesdays, pants are no longer the chains of your tyranny, but an option. Your bare legs are free to go about their business as you see fit, provided they are not a distraction and you are wearing attractive or appropriate underwear. No one wants to see my privates' privates. If my commandos are going commando, I would ask that you refrain from free-balling on No-Pants Tuesdays, but other than that, have fun with it. That is all._ "

* * *

From the general direction of the cockpit, a loud cry of joy and the sound of ripping fabric resounded, to be echoed amongst all of the _Normandy_ 's crew on all decks simultaneously, as they collectively glanced at their calendars.


	6. Beating the Dead Krogan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May the drapery of drama always keep you warm.

* * *

Miranda Lawson was bitterly disappointed. John Shepard could have told her before she filed the complaint (handwritten, in quadruplicate, in three different languages, two of which were dead) that this was what would've happened in the end, but that wasn't any fun.

"This is how things are going to be aboard my ship. This is how my ship is run. This is your life now." Shepard leaned back in the chair opposite Miranda's desk with a wide, wicked grin. He put his feet on her desk, causing the Cerberus operative to grimace distastefully at her commanding officer's bare-legged state.

Ever since No-Pants Tuesday, things had gone downhill, in Ms. Lawson's opinion, and that had only been as of one week ago – a week spent in the tedium of obsessive mineral mining. Not that things had ever been anything but abnormal aboard the _Normandy_ in the first place. At least the pilot thoroughly enjoyed the weekly holiday, even going so far as to prematurely celebrate by going pants-less every day now in a phenomena that was being called the "Anticipation of Tuesday." Miranda classified this as an obstruction of the workspace; Shepard called it being a team player, which in Miranda's opinion was a perfect summary of everything that was wrong with the Commander. All she had to do was tack that on the laundry list of all of Shepard's faults that she'd been forming ever since they touched down on Omega.

"Put some pants on, for Chrissakes," Miranda muttered. At least she had the consolation of winning that bet with yeoman Chambers – the commander was a silk-boxers kind of man.

"What was that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of your jealousy."

"Put some pants on for Chrissakes, _sir_ ," she corrected sarcastically.

Shepard appeared to seriously consider the idea. "No," he finally admitted, "sorry, but I can't look like I don't approve of my very own holiday in front of the crew."

"This goes against Cerberus regulation, which I can and _will_ classify as my religion if I need to file a lawsuit," she threatened.

"This isn't a Cerberus ship," Shepard said with a final tone that brooked no arguments. "Cheer up, Ms. Lawson. You know you're certainly free to celebrate Tuesdays the same as me."

"I'll refrain, thank you," she said tersely, folding her arms over her legendary chest. "And I don't think I'll be leaving my office on Tuesdays, either, for reasons I think you can understand."

"It's your loss." For what it was worth, Shepard did look genuinely sad that Miranda wasn't going to celebrate Tuesdays with the rest of the crew. He got up to leave his XO's office and stretched; Miranda was unable to stop her eyes from traveling south. "For the record, though, you don't have to submit your handwritten complaints in Aramaic next time – I appreciate your tenacity, but hiring a medieval monk to translate what would've arguably been the simple 'hey Shepard, you decisions suck,' is a pain in my ass."

"Why, because monasteries were out of fashion by the sixteen-hundreds?"

"No, because I _don't speak Aramaic_. That's why I'd need a medieval monk to translate. Try to keep up, God." He shook his head sadly and then stalked out of the office, leaving a pouty Miranda behind.

* * *

There were three more dossiers on Shepard's most recent list –a psychotic convict named Jack, and an insane krogan warlord called Okeer, and a thief named Kasumi Goto that Shepard had to classify as a loon just because of her name's association with the other two nutjobs on his list.

More importantly, though, there was a new message in his inbox from a certain Admiral. He blinked a few times, just to make this wasn't some kind of joke, and then leaned back in his desk chair and sighed.

_Shepard,_

_The worst thing you could do if the rumors are true, is ignore this._

_If the rumors_ are _true, and you are alive and this reaches you, get over to the Citadel stat. We need to catch up. I should mention that you're a rotten bastard for not contacting me sooner, but I suppose I can't blame you if you were actually dead._ ("Damn straight you couldn't.")

 _By the way, Councilor Velarn is_ not _happy with you, but since when is he happy with anything you do?_ ("One of these days, I'm gonna prove Velarn's been possessed by Reapers. And that will be a great day.") _In all seriousness, though, we need to talk. Soon. One day from now, if you're available._

_Admiral Anderson_

After determining that this wasn't some kind of joke, Shepard debated whether or not to answer the message.

Anderson was right that the worst he could do was to ignore it, which is probably what he should've done. Battling the Collectors with Cerberus wasn't something he could afford to be loud about – this mission relied on stealth more than hunting Saren had. But he didn't quite feel like severing ties. The former Captain had been the closest thing he had to a father figure, which wasn't something Shepard could just click 'ignore' on. Besides, the thief he was supposed to recruit was on the Citadel as well, and hey, maybe he could go grocery shopping while he was there and get some food for Mess Sergeant Gardner to cook that wasn't absolutely abominable!

So, he replied, keeping it short and simple:

_Anderson,_

_I'm from New York and my ancestors were Vikings. My heritage is rooted in rotten bastardry. Besides, if I'm a rotten bastard, then what does that make of the rotten bastard that mentored me? Only difference is that I drink a whole lot more. I'll be on the Citadel in one day, no more, no less, and don't roll out the welcome wagon. You know how wagons give me migraines._

_Who Else_

"EDI," he called out, and the holographic blue interface popped up near his empty aquarium. He made a mental note to get some fish so it wouldn't look so empty. (He was shocked when he'd entered his cabin and first noticed it, asking EDI where it had suddenly come from – even more shocked when the AI told him empty tank had _been there the whole time_. It forced him to completely reexamine how he saw the universe – what was the meaning of life if he couldn't damn well notice his own ten-foot tall aquarium?)

"Yes, Shepard?"

"Set a course for the Citadel." He made to leave but paused, turning back to the AI's 'face.' "And tell Joker to put on some pants, even if it is Tuesday. I don't like him flying exposed."

"Flight-lieutenant Moreau will be opposed to this," EDI cautioned.

"Joker can kiss my cybernetic ass," he said lightly. "I died for that hat-wearing moron, so the least he could do is put on some shorts."

EDI vipped away to relay this message. Shepard, after enjoying a mellow and satisfying cigar he'd found somewhere in his cabin (Cerberus was evil but they sure knew how to make him happy), ambled his way down to the CIC to make sure _Normandy SR-2_ was par for the course.

It was either fate or divine intervention by Blasto the Magnificent that threw Kelly Chambers into Shepard's path. Almost quite literally – she went flying out of Mordin's lab faster than a bat out of Hell, shrieking about toads and Satan.

"Come back! Was only preliminary! Effects should wear of momentarily" –came Mordin's voice from the lab before the door hissed shut, and Kelly crumpled over her station with a dry sob.

Although he wasn't certain he wanted to know what had happened, some small part of him – the same part of him that tells children to jab beached jellyfish with sticks – _had_ to know. He approached Kelly and tapped her on the shoulder.

She sighed in relief and looked up, only to jump back in fear. "Waaagh!"

"You're jumpy today, yeoman," he observed.

"Uh, ah, um, forgive me sir. You just, er, you yelled at me the last time we, and, I think we got off on the wrong, er, foot, and—"

"What are you babbling about, Kelly?" He interrupted.

The normally cheerful psychologist gulped, brushing back a bit of short red hair that had fallen into her face. "Nothing, sir. I was just saying that I think we'd gotten off the wrong foot, and I wanted you to know that I—"

Shepard held up his hands to stop her and her mouth clamped shut with a click. He struggled to remember whatever she was talking about, but rationalized that he must have either been very drunk, or very sober at the time. Neither states of being were good to catch him in. If his yeoman had managed to catch him in either of those bad states, he could sympathize.

"Okay, let's do this over – you call me Shepard, and I'll call you Kelly, and we'll forget whatever it is you're talking about, like I already have. Does that sound good?"

Kelly smiled, small white teeth gleaming. "Of course, Shepard. Anyway, I was just being Mordin's, er, test subject."

"For what?"

Her entire body froze up and she shuddered, the color in her face vanishing to be replaced by an ashen hue. "For . . . a test."

"And?"

"Those . . . those poor froggies!" She choked out. " _WHAT DID THEY EVER DO TO US? GOD FORGIVE ME, I DIDN'T KNOW!_ I didn't know!" Kelly buried her face in her hands and started sobbing. Shepard patted her back, feigning sympathy.

After Kelly was done crying and had reconstructed what was left of her womanly dignity, Shepard left to check on Joker and as an afterthought, and made a mental note to never, under any circumstances, _ever_ ask Mordin about his experiments. What went on in the salarian's lab was Vegas, as far as the commander was concerned – what went on in there _stayed_ in there and didn't come out, on threat of death if necessary.

Up in the cockpit, Joker was ornerier than ever, now forced into wearing pants. He glared at the commander with bloodshot eyes, conveying more hate in one look than in the whole of Shepard's hate-filled career. That was a mean feat – Shepard had to give the pilot credit.

"Yeah, thanks for this, Commander," Joker growled and gestured down to his terribly clothed state. EDI's display seemed to glint in approval. "I was just enjoying another freeballin' Tuesday, only when yonder blue menace pops up and bitches at me that there's a rule now that I have to fly covered. What sort of bullshit rule is that?"

"My sort of bullshit rule," Shepard said happily.

"No-Pants Tuesday is part of my religion, man! I have to fly bare!"

"Since when?"

"Since you invented it the other day!"

 _This should be good._ "What religion?"

Joker struggled to think, squirming under the commander's gaze. ". . . The Church of Pantsless Metro," he finally said. "I'm the high priest. I _have_ to celebrate every Tuesday. It's my civil right."

Shepard just shook his head, causing Joker to throw his hands up in the air and curse.

"And just like that, the _Man,_ with a shake of his head, takes away our civil liberties: the free exchange of pantsless opinion! What happened to 'pants are the chains of your tyranny no longer,' Shepard? You've turned your back on me! I could sue you for this! Oh, the galaxy is a darker place this day, mark my words!"

Shepard yawned, bored, and left Joker to his mumblings.

Having nothing better to do with his time, he checked in on Jacob, who was in the armory staring down all weapons with an intensity the likes of which Shepard had never seen.

Shepard stared too. "If you stare at it long enough, will it do tricks?"

Jacob glanced up sharply, startled. "Huh? Oh, I dunno. I'm just pretending to be busy."

"So, no tricks then?"

The simple-minded operative scratched his head, which was the intergalactic sign of 'hell should I know'. "I don't know. Illusive Man just sorta put me here and said 'wing it, bro.' I don't know shit about weapons."

Shepard sighed. He figured that might the case. "That's Cerberus for you, spreading fear, hatred, and blabbering incompetence across the galaxy. Oh ye Reapers, beware."

"I guess." Jacob scratched his head and crossed the room. "So, you need something Commander?"

Shepard thought about anything he might need, but was distracted by the fact that Jacob was also not celebrating no-pants Tuesday. He gasped in dismay. "It's a holiday – why are you still wearing pants?"

"Spandex is hard to get off. This one time, had to use a squeegee to get this shit off my skin." Jacob grimaced, doing an awkward little jig on the spot as the memory of the incident came to him. " _Weeuuuughalaaaww_!" He shuddered and stuck out his tongue at the thought. "Couldn't walk straight for damn near a week!"

"Right, right, Cerberus regulation." Shepard's eyes narrowed. "Gonna have to fix that one of these days."

Jacob laughed good-naturedly. "Okay, Commander. I'm gonna ride the monster, if that's all."

" . . . Okay, Jacob." And then he left, wanting nothing more to do with the strange little man with all the drugs.

Shepard paused on his way back to his cabin, hand hovering over the release of the door to Mordin's lab. After some heated internal deliberation, he walked away, knowing in his heart that if he opened that door, all hope was lost.

A half a day of Relays and FTL travel later, the _Normandy SR-2_ and its cantankerous crew arrived on the Zakera ward arm of the Citadel. Shepard, unfamiliar with the ward, had the amazing foresight to download a map of the area, but deleted it after ten minutes of struggling to understand it, due to his inability to operate his omni-tool. The new technology was still as baffling as ever. He threw it at the wall in frustration, and whimpered, to his shame. He made a mental note to ask Miranda about these things – maybe she could teach him how to use it.

Zaeed opted to stay behind while they were on the Citadel, mumbling something about how he was "wanted on fifteen different worlds for murder," which Shepard just attributed to the mercenary's insatiable habit of telling tall tales. Also, his insatiable penchant for wanton murder. Everybody else was game and wanted to take the opportunity to shop on the Citadel and/or see Shepard clash violently with the Council, which they were assured that they could bring popcorn to.

But first, Shepard had to go over a few ground rules while they were in Citadel space:

"Are we all clear? No randomly shooting people, even if they really deserve it – that goes double for you, Garrus."

"Roger."

"And you too, Miranda – don't give me that look! You have a bit of a temper, we've all seen it."

She sulked and grumbled, unable to deny this.

"You should probably talk to Chambers about that," Shepard recommended. "As for everyone else, try to keep the illegal activities to a bare minimum – Zaeed is already wanted here, and I don't want to limit who I'm allowed to have on this station any more. There may come a time in the future where we accidentally stumble across violence here, and I can't have all of you chilling on the ship drinking mimosas while I'm getting shot at by maniacs. On that note, drink all you want but if you tell any of the bartenders to put it on my tab, I won't hesitate to shoot you in the kneecaps. Any questions?"

Mordin raised his hand. "Need genetic samples for experiments. Can collect?"

". . . What kind of unholy experiments, no-no, no, Mordin, for the love of God, no. Don't tell me, I don't really wanna know." The mad doctor opened his mouth to explain, but Shepard just shook his head and gestured helplessly. "Just . . . do your thing, I don't care."

"Success!"

"Yeah. Oh, and Jacob?"

The operative glanced up eagerly, hearing his name mentioned.

Shepard stared for a few seconds, realizing who he was talking to. The lecture he had prepared fell right out of his head. "It's nice to see you," he spoke slowly. "How've you been through the lecture?"

"Pretty good, Commander," he said with a hearty salute. "I'm _hiiiiiiigh_ as a kite."

"That's great, Mr. Taylor. Now everybody, move out."

* * *

" _Commander Shepard, please say your password and receive a free gift!_ "

Shepard stared weakly at the advertising pillar in front of him, the hologram of a hooded Japanese woman with some kind of lip-tattoo thing going on smirking at him. He was fairly certain that everybody around him could hear the advertisement, including people on the other side of the Citadel, and also he was naked in front of a crowd of people, and they were all pointing and giggling like pubescent schoolgirls. He felt obligated to mention aloud that this was not part of the dossier _he'd_ read, but Miranda countered by telling him that this was just a test of Ms. Goto's that he had to go through.

"I'm going to look like an idiot, aren't I?"

"Yep," Garrus told him, patting him on the shoulder and expressing the turian equivalent of a smirk. "And we'll all be snickering at you behind your back like pubescent schoolgirls."

"That was rhetorical," he muttered and strode up to the advertisement. "I ain't playing this game, Goto. You exactly know who I am and why I'm here."

Kasumi Goto's head on the advertisement didn't miss a beat. " _Wow. They said you were a hard-ass and they weren't kidding. Eyes up, soldier._ " The advertisement pillar blinked out and went back to the blank slate hologram it had been before. Shepard glanced up at the rafters where sure enough, Kasumi Goto's shadowed form was.

"Why the advertisement?" Shepard had to wonder.

She shrugged, the gesture barely visible in the shadows. "I thought it'd be funny. It lost its pizzazz when you wouldn't play along, but maybe that's my fault for thinking you would. I'm just going to assume that because Cerberus is hopelessly incompetent—"

"I object!" Miranda objected.

"—they didn't tell you about our arrangement?"

"Oh Lord," Shepard sighed, massaging his temples as a migraine threatened. He glared at Miranda. "You people are the _worst_ evil organization _ever_." Miranda didn't deign to respond to that.

Kasumi smirked. "Yep! You're going to help me with an epic heist."

"As if we don't have enough problems," Garrus interrupted, "now we're going to be thieves? Didn't you just tell us to limit the illegal activities, Shepard?"

He shrugged. "You can't have everything. Besides, Garrus, this is right up our alley. What kind of heist?"

Kasumi shook her head, smiling. "The usual – undercover work, smiling angry people, impenetrable vaults, snappy one-liners, and Ian Fleming novels. No real details now. I'll tell you more back on your shiny ship. Seeya around, Shep." And with that quippy little speech, the infamous thief Kasumi Goto clicked a button on her omni-tool and turned invisible. Presumably she walked off towards greener, more valuable pastures (which she promptly stole out from under the cows that grazed in said pastures). Unless Goto was a stalker weirdo, in which case she only _pretended_ to leave and really followed the Shepard and his motley crew through the entirety of their adventures from then on. Either way fits for the purposes of comedy, so you decide.

Shepard stared at the spot where Kasumi Goto used to be. "One," he began, "why can't I do that with my omni-tool? And two, is she going to keep calling me 'Shep' because if so, that is gonna get real old, real fast."

Mordin, not realizing or not caring that these were rhetorical questions, answered him with a nod. "Will continue with nickname, most likely. Nicknames tend to stick. Best get used to it. But your omni-tool is not outfitted for stealth technology – would be useless on you, anyway, as you prefer to charge in guns blazing."

Shepard snapped his fingers. "Damn."

Jacob looked more confused than usual. "But why can't you just fix a stealth program or somethin' on the omni-tool? You're a scientist type."

Mordin shook his head sadly. "Is not possible. Would require class change, which would require re-write – inconvenient at this point in the story. Easier to simply continue with things as they are. No need for reinventing the wheel, as you humans say."

Everyone stared at him. Only Jacob was stupid enough to respond. "What do wheels have to do with this?"

"Wheel of life, wheel of fate, Wheels & Legman, Wheel of Fortune!" The salarian declared, waving his arms wildly. "Wheels most important invention, next to toaster. Mostly irrelevant to discussion, however. Pity I can't explain further, as it would break your mind."

Miranda, Garrus, and Shepard all looked at each other with pained/bemused expressions and decided they had best ignore the following conversation for the sake of their own sanity. They left the duo behind to their reality-bending logics. They all had better things to do than go insane.

"But, why?" Jacob, meanwhile, had to wonder.

Mordin cackled. "World as you know a lie. Reality much more terrifying, understanding requires submitting to the whim of an overlord god-entity of questionable sanity, whose every word exists to define us in what we conceive as real. Much easier to believe lie. Truth is terrible."

The nondescript citizens of the Zakera ward looked up briefly, confused by a sudden sharp crack; Mordin's scientific infallibility hit Jacob's fragile mental barriers, as a tiny invisible rock hits the windshield of a car and then makes you pay a _ridiculous_ sum to get it replaced _—I mean, I didn't even see the damn thing, how could it have been large enough to crack my windshield if I didn't even get a glimpse of it? This is bullsh—_ The operative's sanity began to slowly crack and splinter at the seams.

Mordin, unfortunately, not knowing how or when to stop when on an evil rant, continued: "reality is that we are not real, our actions being dictated by an authority whose whim is far beyond our own. Not a matter of religion, of _science_! Provable. Quantifiable. Observable. Example, you have no personality, are walking stereotype and yet are incapable of changing this on your own, not without exterior interference from a main character such as our illustrious Commander. No natural evolution. No real depth. All forced in name of convenience. Different example: think of your own actions, and the actions of your commanding officer and your surrounding mates. Brief moments you recall, but no more than that – the rest is only implied to have happened 'behind the scenes,' never actually occurred. Did not happen. Was not real. Never was. You do not exist. Neither do I. We are side-characters. Merely _implied_ , not full realized or fully formed, existing only to provide comic relief or foil to hero's magnetic personality. Even this speech, thread in _fabric_ of comedy! Tapestry of parody! Fiber of farce. _Arras of ridicule._ _**Snuggie® of idiocy!**_ " Mordin coughed lightly, lowering his voice which had been steadily rising throughout his passionate rant. "Er, can go on with textile allusions, if needed. Yarn of satire. Drapery of drama. Cord of pastiche. Tendril of—eh, well, dead krogan has been beaten enough."

"W-what are you saying?" Jacob whispered, fearful of the answer but unable to _not_ know.

Mordin smirked. "You, I, everyone, everything you know, a lie. Nothing but a characters and scenery in a story."

Everyone in the surrounding area had wisely tuned out this interaction, clearly having better things to do than listen in on the crumbling of the walls of a broken man's reality. One by one, Jacob's conceptions of reality fell – one wall, two wall, three wall, until finally the fourth tumbled to the ground with a thud and Mr. Taylor plopped to the ground, shattered.

"No, no, no," he whispered, eyes wide and full of tears, clutching at his bald head, "all a lie? No _ooooo_ …"

Mordin Solus cackled madly, as mad scientists are prone to do. His voice began to change timber and took on a particularly annoying (but weirdly familiar) tenor, and a strange glint appeared in his eyes as they seemed to almost shift colors from salarian black . . . to human green. The effect was so brief it would've gone unnoticed by most passerby, except for Jacob, who observed the transformation with growing horror.

"Another falls," the not-Mordin laughed, "just like that idiot Osborn! _Mwahahahaaaa_!"

Jacob, unable to cope with it all, raised his fists to the ceiling began to scream. " _ **IT'S ALL A LIE!**_ "

A nearby turian C-Sec officer tapped Professor Solus on the shoulder, interrupting the madman's cackling. Mordin coughed, slightly awkward. "Ah, can I help you, officer?"

"Hey, could you quiet down your friend there?" The officer gestured to Jacob, who was wailing against the world. "He's really disrupting the peace and some people are starting to complain. You can keep doing the cackling, but the existential screaming has got to go. With the way he's carrying on, you'd think nihilistic epiphanies about the nature of man and the universe were invented just for him to shriek about!"

"Of course," Mordin said smoothly and kicked Jacob in the head, shutting the Cerberus operative up. "Will try to keep cackling to a minimum while on station. Have a nice day!"

"You too, sir." The C-Sec officer stalked off to go back to his duties, saying to himself, "Gee, what a nice guy! I wonder what he was laughing about that was so funny. Must've been one hell of a joke."

* * *

"Sorry for the inconvenience, sir."

Shepard glared vehemently at the turian C-Sec officer in front of him, fantasizing about the various invasive ways he would kill him. The officer barely noticed, continuing to fiddle with his console while the threesome waited impatiently to get through the door into the Zakera Ward proper. The full-body scan was insulting enough, but now Shepard was wasting time by submitting to these new and ultimately useless security procedures. He knew in his cold, cybernetic heart that all of this new technology hadn't stopped _anyone_ from entering, and furthermore it just served him right that the one time he had decided to come to the Citadel legally instead of illegally, he'd get raped by a virtual scanner. _How is the place different from Omega again? Oh wait, there isn't vorcha shit on the floor._

"C-Sec hasn't changed," Garrus grunted. Shepard nodded along because the two buddies were on the same tantric level.

Miranda pulled off a glove and took out a nail file from a previously unseen pocket on her jumpsuit, filing her nails while they waited. "This is a waste of time," she said lightly.

"But I—" the C-Sec officer said, speaking into his comm. Someone barked on the other end, cutting him off, and he grunted an assent. "All right, fine. Okay." He turned to the impatient Commander who was tapping his armored foot in the universal sign of 'hurry the hell up.' "Sorry," the turian laughed sheepishly, "our database is saying you're, um, dead. But, heh, obviously you're not . . . right?"

Shepard shrugged, honestly not knowing the answer to that question. "Lucky for you, I don't eat brains. Now get out my way."

"Right. Again, sorry for the inconvenience."

"Yeah, whatever," he growled and stomped on through the door followed by his two loyal lackeys.

The sight they were greeted with was shocking, to say the least.

An older blond man jumped up from his disk, his face full of an emotion Shepard knew all too well – bloodthirsty rage. The man stalked over to what was apparently a junior officer, a human woman, who was cowering from his wrath. Two turian agents off to the side examined the exchange disinterestedly.

"You gotta make 'em _scream_ a little, Jamison!" The man raged, fist coming down on a sparking console and the woman yelped. "You gotta make 'em _scream_ if youwant him to sing! You hear me?"

"Y-y-y-y-yes, sir!" the Jamison woman eventually managed to spit out.

The nosier of the two turian agents felt a sudden urge to do something stupid. "But, Captain Bailey," he interjected, "wouldn't that be counterproductive? If he's afraid of us because we torture him, he might as well tell us whatever he thinks we want to hear regardless of truth, and not to mention if we torture him there's a chance of him dying right in the middle of it."

The blond human Captain turned around, very, very, very slowly, and very, very, very slowly walked over. He stopped only when he was right in front of the turian's face, and the insubordinate avian alien visibly gulped. "You think you're better than me?" The man growled. "You want my _job?_ Is that it, son?"

"N-no, sir!" He blurted out.

Bailey glared and very, very, very slowly backed off. He pointed to a wall behind him. "Put your hand on that wall."

"What?"

"I said, 'put your hand on that wall.' Did I st-stutter?"

"N-no—"

" _ **Did. I. Stutter**_!" The raging human raged. The turian gulped again and ran over to the wall, putting his right hand firmly where Bailey had pointed.

Very, very, very slowly, Bailey pulled out a combat knife from his belt. "Please don't stab my hand," the turian sobbed.

Cpt. Bailey glared and approached the turian and in one swift movement, stabbed the turian in the stomach. "Now _that_ ," he demonstrated, " _is how you make them scream_!"

"OH!" The agent cried, staring down at the wound in his chest in disbelief. "OH! **OW!** Oh my God, that didn't hurt as much as I thought it did, since I'm wearing heavy armor, but holy _shit, ow!_ "

"Yeah? Walk it off, you lily-livered pansy!" Bailey growled and marched back to his desk chair.

Shepard leaned over to Garrus and whispered, "I think I'm in love."

"Since when was C-Sec not completely filled with pussies?" Was all the scarred ex-cop had to wonder.

"Oh," Bailey started, just now noticing the three armored newcomers in his office. "Er. It seems we have visitors."

Shepard grinned and stuck out his hand. "Yeah, the name's—"

A familiar dark-skinned human popped up from virtually nowhere right before introductions could be exchanged, and everyone jumped and screamed from surprise. "Hi everyone!" Jacob announced with a wave.

" _ **HIT THE DECK! YAAAAAAAAH!**_ " Bailey screamed and instinctively threw the combat knife in his hand at the intruder, who slumped over with a thud. The C-Sec captain ripped his shirt halfway off and roared at the ceiling in a storm of PTSD. " _ **YOU COMMIE SCUM, YOU'LL NEVER**_ _ **TAKE ME ALIVE! I'LL KILL YOU ALL, YOU BRAIN-EATING SPIDER BASTARDS!**_ "

Jacob fell to the ground, screaming and sobbing incoherently. All Shepard could understand was something about 'ass-guards' and 'lies.'

"Knew this would happen," Professor Solus cried out suddenly, as he had been lurking directly behind Jacob just in case something like this might happen. He bent down to the Cerberus operative and examined the wound with sadistic glee.

The salarian doctor nodded approvingly. "Excellent aim," he congratulated Bailey.

Bailey harrumphed like the badass he was and turned back to Shepard. Shepard glanced between Jacob's death throes and Bailey's half-dressed half-crazed state, debating which issue ranked higher on his priority list. He stuck his hand back out to his fellow human and shook it firmly. "Commander Shepard. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Right," Bailey grunted. He plopped down in his desk chair and examined the holographic interface in front of him. "Seems like you were having some problems registering on our scanners, Commander. They seem to think that you're dead."

" _Mostly_ dead," Ms. Lawson had to interject. "It's a minor difference. He's still slightly alive."

Shepard's brow furrowed at that thought. "What's that supposed to mean, 'still slightly alive'?"

"Oh no," Miranda coughed, "I seem to have come down with a mysteriously convenient cough."

Shepard rolled his eyes. "Gee, we can't have you ill on the field – Mordin, why don't you check her out?"

Mordin smiled innocently on cue. "Have probulator back on ship, should determine problem in one, two, five probes!"

Miranda grimaced, and glared vehemently at her commander, crossing her arms huffily. "You win this one. _Fine,_ I'll explain later."

"Knew probulator was bad investment," Dr. Solus sighed. He bent back down to Jacob's corpse-to-be and began treating the wound, humming an aria from Macbeth under his breath.

Bailey, all while ignoring this lovely exchange, was busy typing into his console and fixing John Shepard's identity crisis. A few techno beeps later and he looked up to the Commander with a smile. "You're all set."

Shepard was impressed. "Really? Just like that?"

"Yup. You can come and go as you please. It's not like we have to worry about you smuggling weapons or red sand onto the Citadel – you're a goddamn hero."

Shepard had an epiphany. He grabbed Miranda's shoulder and turned them both around so they could have a private conversation. "Make a note of this."

"What am I, your secretary?" She hissed.

He stared at her blankly for all of a second before pinching the bridge of his nose. "We had this discussion. Yes. Yes, you are. That is in your job description now."

She sighed. "Please tell me you don't plan to smuggle weapons and illegal drugs on the Citadel, Commander. I really can't take this much disappointment from one of my ex-heroes, not after what happened on Lazarus station."

He looked surprised, apparently not even hearing the last part of that. "Smuggle weapons? Great idea, Miranda, I didn't even think of that! I was just gonna say that we probably ought not to tell Bailey that we already did the drug thing." He jabbed a thumb towards Jacob.

Miranda appeared to seriously consider this idea. "Well, if it brings us profit, I can't say that I don't approve, even if I would prefer if we didn't deliberately circumvent the law to give us money. Then again, politicians do that legally every day, and Cerberus takes advantage of the law on a daily basis."

"Don't tell Illusive Man. Ah, who the fuck am I kidding, he's probably listening to us as we speak," he muttered as he glanced suspiciously around for hidden microphones and cameras. "Bastard's probably sipping a martini and having the time of his life while we get harassed by security."

Miranda shrugged, which could be taken as a confirmation or an 'I wasn't really listening but I have the decency to pretend that I was.' The two turned back to the main scene, where, during their brief 'absence,' Mordin had revived Jacob, Garrus and Bailey were chatting about interrogation methods, and everybody else was being scared by Garrus and Bailey's increasingly morbid conversation.

"You know," Garrus was saying, "I find the curved edge of a scalpel to be the most useful in eye removal. Krogans are a bit harder with the heavier brows, but with humans, asari, and salarians, it seems to work."

Bailey hummed in agreement. "Yeah, you turians are a bit harder to crack. Gotta really dig in there deep." He gestured, miming what appeared to be an extremely tense ice cream scooper. "No offense."

"None taken. Our lack of fragility is a source of racial pride."

"Quarians, now there's a real pain in the—"

"Not to interrupt," Miranda interjected, looking slightly disturbed, "but we should probably get moving."

Shepard glanced down at the invisible watch on his hand. "Gotta meet with the Council in a bit."

"You mean _yell_ at the Council," Garrus corrected.

"Yelling will probably happen soon, yes. Especially if that fucking turian is there. No offense to the fucking turians present, especially you, Garrus," Shepard said quickly.

Garrus shrugged nonchalantly. "Meh. I'm not a very good turian anyway."

Mordin held up two bags of popcorn, one dextro-amino-acid friendly and the other, Orville Redenbacher's. "Can't wait. Have treats. Mike 'n' Ikes available at concessions!"

Shepard scratched his head in confusion. "Where the hell did you get those? You've been here this entire time."

Mordin shrugged, like it was no big thing. "Nearby plothole. Will have microwave in Anderson's office also from plothole. Different plothole than first one. _Muhahaha!_ "

Shepard, bewildered and out of options, turned to the revived Jacob. "Translation?"

"Everything you know is a lie, Commander," Jacob said darkly.

Shepard backed away very slowly. "Ooooo-kay. Let's just . . . not talk about anything anymore and get a move on, yeah?"

And so they did.

Until Shepard saw the fish, that is.

Miranda had interjected something into the silence, "Commander, I—" and he had cut her off, saying something about how, "I really can't stand anymore interru—OH my GOD are those _fish?_ " Then he took off at a speed near light towards the nearest store, which happened to be full of small pets such as fish, and hamsters, as well as many other kinds of curios for the travelling space marine, like model ships and combat knives.

"This is the strangest store I have ever seen," Miranda noted, and followed her errant Commander. Everybody else shrugged and followed her in turn.

"Can I help you?" The asari cashier said with the too-wide smile of she-who-sells-things.

"We're with him," Garrus pointed to Shepard, who was staring at what might have been the most adorable thing in existence, if Commander fucking Shepard used words like 'adorable.'

Commander John Shepard, the ex-Spectre, ally of Cerberus, notorious N7 space marine, killer of space-bugs, and recently zombified, had a weakness for small furry animals. He'd had a dog growing up that he'd lovingly named Dogmeat, but after Dogmeat disappeared in a freak radiation accident, and Dogmeat's puppies had all been crushed in a freak skiing accident, Shepard had been left pet-bereft. While at the helm of the old _Normandy_ , he just hadn't quite had the time or space (no pun intended) for a pet, and considering the state of the old _Normandy_ he was glad he'd never gotten one. A low-maintenance pet such as a hamster, or a fish, though? Now the empty fish tank in his cabin wouldn't be quite so depressing – especially what with the morbid skylight (" _who the_ hell _builds a skylight on a spaceship? And then in the captain's cabin, whose captain just recently_ died in space _? If I ever meet the fucker who designed this place I'm shooting him._ ) …which had resulted in Shepard being clinically unable sleep in his bed because of the dreams, and he'd been forced to turn his desk into a rudimentary mattress. At least with a pet, even a pet as unresponsive as a fish or as stupid as a hamster, it wouldn't be _quite_ so lonely.

He called the asari clerk over. "I want it."

She cocked her head to the side. "Which one, sir?"

"All of it," he told her gravely. "Have 'em delivered to my ship. It's the biggest, shiniest one. You can't miss it. No, really, you can't."

"Okay," she said with the same wide grin and tapped something into her magic omni-tool. "Your total will be—"

When she told him the price, Shepard's bellow of rage could be heard from the top of the Citadel Tower in the Presidium. Indeed, upon hearing the strange sound, the turian Councilor Velarn looked up sharply from side to side, mandibles twitching in confusion.

"Why do I feel angry all of the sudden?" He asked his fellow councilman/woman.

"Because you are a turian," Tevos said blandly. "Does anyone know why your people are always angry? No, and we don't even question it, because you have giant guns."

"I _do_ have giant guns _,_ "Velarn said approvingly and flexed.

"That's not what I was—yes," she gave a long-suffering sigh, "of course. Fine. Whatever."

Then, salarian Councilor Sparatus chuckled began to cackle madly, having just been exposed to the substance humans called 'coffee,' and the other two members looked on with worry. Somewhere in the Zakera ward, Mordin Solus had a jolly good laugh for no discernible reason. His compadres ignored him, since they were used to the mad scientist's odd outbursts.

All the while Commander Shepard's crew was beginning to discover how horrible Shepard was at haggling. Having failed to bring down the price and succeeded in _increasing_ it, he was left with only one option: "I'll give you an endorsement."

"What?" Miranda blurted.

"What?" Garrus spluttered.

"What," the asari repeated dully.

"You heard me. Me, Commander Shepard. I'm a Spectre. I'll give you an endorsement if you give me a discount on all your merchandise."

" _What?_ " Miranda repeated again.

"Oh-ho-ho, this should be good," Garrus grumbled.

The asari cashier mulled the idea over for a few moments. "Okay. Here, speak your endorsement and I'll have my VI work it into the advertisement."

"I want at least 40% off," Shepard warned, looking her straight in the eye.

The asari nodded dumbly.

"Sometimes I like being the most persuasive being in the galaxy," Shepard noted to his companions.

"Even though you can't haggle worth anything," Miranda reminded.

"You are such a buzzkill." He cleared his throat and leaned in to the asari's holorecorder, doing his best to speak clearly and coherently, despite his ever-present inebriation and obvious Manhattan-ness. "I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel. _"_

The asari smiled and proceeded with the discount. Shepard got his pretty fish and new hamster so he could fulfill his secret need to be love and be loved by cute animals, his crew managed not to break anything or shoot anyone, everything was going according to plan, mostly. Until Garrus had to ruin it for _everyone_ (according to Ms. Lawson).

"Hey," he began nonchalantly, "I wonder if that would work on other stores."

Shepard paused. "You think?"

The buzzkill snatched Garrus by the arm in a vice grip and pulled him aside. " _What are you doing, Vakarian?_ " Miranda Lawson hissed.

"Sssh," Garrus hissed right back, "just wait. This is gonna be hilarious!"

_I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel._

_I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel._

_I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel._

_I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel._

_I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel._

"E-every store front," Miranda Lawson stuttered, taking in the terrible sight before them.

"Knew this would happen," Mordin commented, stuffing his face full of popcorn. Jacob wandered off to the side, muttering about 'inevitability' and 'death.'

When Shepard meandered his way back, Garrus began a slow-clap.

" _Every_ store gave me the same discount," the Commander grinned. "Every single one. I even got those provisions for Gardner at discount. I am unbelievably awesome." He shared a high-five with his turian buddy and was rejected a high-five with Miranda. He had one with Mordin instead.

"Th-this is insane," the Cerberus operative stuttered, unbelieving.

Jacob snorted. "Whole damn universe is insane."

Mordin whacked Jacob on the head with his omni-tool and the human went down, much to passerby approval, as some began to clap for the mad hero. The Professor took an obligatory bow.

"Yup," Shepard grinned, laughing a little at himself. "Every single store. I think I might do this every time I come to a place I've been after being dead for two years."

"We're not resurrecting you again," Ms. Lawson warned. "It was too expensive for the comparative payoff. Do try not to die again before you can save life as we know it."

Shepard gave a bitter, barking laugh. "You know that sod about all your eggs in one basket? I ain't promising anything, Lawson."

Garrus checked the clock on his visor and was amazed at the time. "Hey, Commander, shouldn't we have met with the Council, uh, two hours ago?"

Shepard was likewise amazed. "Wow. Yeah. I guess time flies when you're having fun. Anderson's probably pissed, though, so we should go. Nobody mention this to him when we get there."

The journey to the human embassy on the Presidium was short and not perilous in any way, which was so far the opposite of what they were expecting that it was plain suspicious. Shepard discounted the suspicions by saying that they had all become too accustomed to Omega's perilous atmosphere, what with its angry racists and dirty vorcha and French people. The crew readied their weapons all the same, just in case one of the above popped out from around a corner and shot them in the face.

Shepard's favorite Alliance Admiral was waiting for them in Councilor Udina's office. Shepard was about to greet the man with a grin and a snappy one-liner, were it but for one face.

Councilor Velarn.

In lieu of an actual Council meeting, Shepard was greeted with the holograms of the asari, turian, and salarian members. Udina was suspiciously absent, which Shepard suspected Anderson had something to do with. The man wasn't known for interfering with politics – he'd made it abundantly clear to the ex-marine that he wanted _nothing_ to do with the Council – so something was clearly up.

It was an odd reunion, to say the least. Anderson grunted, but there was no smile. Shepard attributed this to his lateness. "You're late," Anderson confirmed.

Shepard only shrugged. "I was getting drunk. I was having a smoke. I was saving the galaxy. I was coming up with crackpot conspiracy theories about the end of the galaxy. I was banging your wife. Take your pick."

The Admiral frowned. "I'm not married."

"What? I was talking to Councilor Velarn."

The holographic politician grunted in disapproval. " _Your sad attempts at sarcasm and getting a rise out of me will do you no good, Commander Shepard._ "

"I have four completely objective non-bribed witnesses that can vouch for the wife thing, if you want," Shepard offered. He looked to his crew hanging out by the door with popcorn, and they all nodded in approval. Garrus even gave him an encouraging thumbs-up, which was returned.

" _Let's just get this over with,_ " the Councilor Tevos interjected. " _There's no need to prolong this._ "

"Oh yes there is!" Shepard cried.

Out of complete nowhere, the hologram of the salarian Council member began to shudder and shiver. It was then that everyone realized Sparatus was not ill, but quite mad, as evidenced by his excessive cackling. " _Bwahahahahaahahahahaaaaa! Muhu-u-u-hahahahaha!_ "

Everyone stared at him, even his fellow holograms. The asari council member and the human admiral shared a sigh. "That seemed excessive," Shepard commented.

" _ALLLLL the pretty horsies!_ " The salarian giggled. He gradually devolved into incoherent mumbles and everyone stopped paying attention to him.

" _I apologize on my fellow councilor's behalf,_ " Tevos said blandly, completely unapologetic. " _He hasn't been himself these last few minutes, which seem like years to salarians, as I understand._ "

Shepard nodded in understanding. "I forgot salarians have dog-years instead of regular ones."

Dr. Solus spit out his popcorn and threw the rest of the bag at the show. "Booo!" he yelled. "Below belt! Sub-par insult! Do better!"

" _Racist!_ " Sparatus echoed.

Shepard rolled his eyes. " _I'm_ not racist. I just work for occasionally racist people. Or is it that I occasionally work for racist people? Take it up with the Illusive Man. You wanna talk about racist? _Batarians._ Now those are some racist assholes. Took me all of one day on Omega to realize that."

" _Oh, definitely,_ " Tevos said immediately.

" _Indubitably,_ " nodded Velarn.

"Everyone knows batarians are racist jackasses," said the Admiral, "but we should probably cut to the chase."

" _Yes,_ " the asari agreed, _"preferably before Velarn says something that makes everyone mad or Sparatus has another episode._ "

Shepard scratched his head in confusion. "Yeah, about that, what is the chase? And how do we cut to it?"

" _The 'chase?_ " Velarn raged before anyone could stop him. The sane people in the room sighed. " _THE CHASE is that you, Shepard, are a traitor to this galaxy! You work for intergalactic terrorists! You die and come back from the grave before the end of the fiscal year, before any taxes could be collected on the inheritance you left behind for your heir! Then you have the gall to force us to attend the most boring funeral I've ever had the misfortune to sit through, and for what? Cake? It was_ chocolate! _It wasn't dextro-amino-acid-friendly! None of the refreshments were!_ "

Shepard pulled of his glove calmly, coolly, and threw it down on the ground before the turian hologram. Everyone gasped. Mordin and Garrus started to clap enthusiastically.

Shepard turned to the hologram, putting a finger up in its face and glared. He quickly switched to his middle finger to add emphasis. "Are you _honestly_ blaming me for the shitty catering at my own funeral? I didn't have any control over that! That was Liara's fault as my executor, and I am _not_ going to sit here and listen to you insult my friends, especially the ones that don't know any better because they're not used to human society!"

Velarn crossed his arms and fixed Commander Shepard with a glare that could level a city. " _Your hair is stupid._ "

Miranda Lawson's gasp was audible. Everyone else went completely dead silent. "Why's everyone quiet?" Jacob whispered to her, because he didn't know any better.

"The hair is a very, very sensitive subject," she whispered back, "now hush, you're ruining the show."

In the dead silence of the room, only Councilor Sparatus' insane cackling could be heard until Anderson had the wisdom to turn the sound off on his hologram. All that was left with the quiet, shaking anger, and the tension between furious turian and equally furious human.

"You. Take. That. Back," Shepard growled through grit teeth, barely containing his rage. Everyone took a step back from the deadly, heavily armored commando.

Fortunately for everyone that day, Council Tevos intervened. " _If I may interrupt,_ " she said sharply, " _it's only a matter of time before Udina discovers this secret meeting._ "

That brought everyone's attention, even Velarn's. "You have our attention," Anderson said for them all.

" _We all know how he prefers to approach these situations. If he finds out that we all went behind his back to have this meeting, he'll throw a hissy-fit so loud they'll hear it on Thessia. I propose we pretend that we already traded all the customary insults and witty banter and get on the with the purpose of this meeting, so we can conclude as fast as possible, and I can get back to my soap operas."_

Shepard and Velarn shared a hate-filled look that lasted several seconds. "Fine," Shepard finally said. "I'll be the better man. Let's get to it."

Tevos nodded and pushed a few invisible buttons on an invisible thing before her. Invisibly. " _Now, in light of your service record with the Council, there's several ways this can go. Since you are . . . no longer dead, it is within our power to restore your Spectre status, Shepard._ "

"Really?" His eyes lit up. "You guys would do that for me?"

" _However,_ " Velarn had to interject, " _you're technically a terrorist now. A racist terrorist. A racist robot zombie terrorist. And that's not something the Council likes to support. I think you'll understand why._ "

"Oh you dicks," he muttered. Anderson put an encouraging hand on his shoulder but John just shuffled way huffily.

"Now hold on," Anderson objected, "I'm sure Shepard has his reasons."

" _Everyone has their reasons_ ," Tevos said dryly, " _the question is whether or not those reasons are politically acceptable._ "

"I'm trying to save the galaxy and Cerberus is the only one who can help me do it," Shepard reported bluntly. "That's it."

" _Save the galaxy from what, more evil robot gods from dark space?_ " Velarn spat. " _Ah yes, these 'Reapers,'"_ he said with insulting finger-quotes, " _are coming to destroy all galactic life, like you said before. We've dismissed that threat._ "

All Shepard could manage was strangling noises. He reached for his gun but Anderson's wary gaze cautioned him against it. "But—Sovereign—for the love of God, the Reaper corpse was _right there,_ it crashed into the fucking Citadel Tower! I did battle with it! Just ask my crew!"

" _Because your crew are_ wholly _objective witnesses, yes,_ " Velarn smirked.

"It's their _job_ to be objective," Shepard spat. "That's what they get paid to do." He kicked the gauntlet he'd thrown on the floor across the room and threw his hands up in the air. "You know what? Fuck it, I'm done, I don't even want my Spectre status back. Give it to someone who cares, like Williams. I'm sure she'd love it."

"But, Shepard—" Anderson objected, looking flustered, but his old friend only shook his head.

" _We'd be willing to re-instate you,_ " Tevos said suddenly, startling everyone in the room.

"What?" Shepard blurted.

" _WHAT?_ " Velarn repeated.

"What," Miranda echoed sarcastically.

" _OH YE SALARIAN GODS,_ " the salarian councilor suddenly cried out, " _WHAT ARE WE YELLING ABOUT?_ "

Shepard turned to the admiral. "Didn't you turn off his sound?"

"I did," Anderson confirmed, and looked just as puzzled. "How the hell . . . never mind." From over in the corner, Mordin chuckled to himself so quietly that no one but an angsty nihilistic Jacob could hear.

Tevos gave a light cough to bring everyone to attention. " _Here's the deal – we'll reinstate your status, Shepard, provided that you limit your activities to the Terminus Systems. In lieu of your service record—_ "

"You mean when I saved your sorry asses?"

"—service record _, we're willing to overlook the Cerberus affiliation as long as you don't rub our faces in it._ "

Shepard stared at the hologram for a few seconds in confusion before looking to his father figure for a translation. "What'd she say? In English, please, not politician-speak."

"You'll still be a Spectre," Anderson translated, "but you won't get any of the benefits. It's a publicity stunt."

Shepard sighed. "Now I know why Saren went rogue. He was just so overwhelmed by all the positive reinforcement here. I feel so loved." He turned _very_ reluctantly to the Council members. Velarn was making faces at him, and Shepard scowled. "Oh you little—" Anderson's hand on his arm stayed him, though, and he forced himself through a breathing exercise he'd picked up during his rehabilitation after Akuze. What he wouldn't have given for a drink right then.

"Okay, fine," he finally consented. "I'll be your goddamn Spectre again. But I want paid leave for all the time I was dead – all two years of it!"

" _Like hell,_ " Velarn growled.

" _Fine,_ " Tevos sighed, " _just as long as this meeting ends. I'm shocked Udina hasn't—uh oh,_ " she said suddenly and all three of the feeds cut. From behind the two soldiers came the futuristic sound of a sliding door, and then the very last voice that anyone wanted to hear.

"What's going on here?" None other than the human Councilor, Udina snarled.

Shepard could see that from Udina's perspective, it looked bad. The man's least favorite admiral and least favorite dead Spectre were camping out in his office with said Spectre's crew, _and_ they'd spilled popcorn everywhere.

Luckily for everyone that wasn't Udina, Shepard's good buddy Garrus came to save the day. "What's the password?"

"What password?" Udina spat, his dark complexion becoming spottier with each passing second. "This is _my_ office, and you're all invading! Anderson, what's going on here?"

"Wow, you guessed the password, word-for-word," Garrus stated, startled. He stepped back and let the human in.

"Garrus, come on, what are you doing?" Shepard complained. "You weren't supposed to let him in! Now I can't escape off the balcony like we planned."

"Sorry man, he guessed the password. Which was really impressive, because I was improvising."

"When we get back to the ship," Miranda announced, "I'm re-writing your defensive protocols, Shepard. This is simply unacceptable."

"Whatever," he sighed and grabbed his thrown gauntlet from off the floor, preparing to punch Udina with it, if need be.

"Anderson!" the human Councilor barked. "What are you—Sh-Shepard?" He blanched, skin going white. Shepard smirked.

"So many 'Spectre' and 'ghost' puns right now," Mordin commented.

"Don't even," Shepard threatened. "You stick to not understanding the boundaries of ethical science, doctor. I'll stick to cheesy one-liners. Now, Udina – you look like you've seen a ghost."

"You-you're alive?" It didn't take long for the surprise to die and be replaced by irritation. "What are you doing in my office!"

"I was just leaving, after I had a word with my old friend here," he nodded towards Anderson, who crossed his arms and smirked. Anderson mimed a punch and Udina blanched again, stepping back.

"J-just leave. Get out. Now. I don't know what you're up to, Anderson, but I'll find out!"

"Whatever, you back-stabbing honky," Anderson muttered under his breath. Udina hadn't been close enough to hear, but Shepard couldn't conceal a smile. The elder pulled his protégé aside for a few seconds so they could have a heart-to-heart while Udina cowered from Shepard's overbearing crewmembers.

"That went a lot better than I thought it would," Anderson stated. "Honestly, I thought you and Velarn were going to have a fist-fight. The other two insisted it be a distance meeting because of it."

"Sons of bitches," Shepard growled. "If I ever see that bastard . . ."

"I'll hold him down for you. Now, I'm sure you've got a few questions – I've got some myself, but you need to understand, Shepard. You're with Cerberus."

"I'm not with Cerberus," Shepard clarified. "I was rebuilt by them and given a new ship by them, and my crew is employed by Cerberus, and my XO is a Cerberus operative but I'm no—oh my God, you're right. I'm a Cerberus dog now." His eyes widened in horror. "Shit. I gotta save the galaxy or die trying quick so I can get out of this."

"I won't ask what you're doing," Anderson said darkly, "you probably wouldn't be able to tell me anyway."

"Nah, I just don't care enough to."

"Classy."

"I learn from the best."

David Anderson rolled his eyes. "Still, for that same reason, there are things I can't tell you either, not while you're working with Cerberus."

"Is this your fancy way of saying you don't trust me?" Shepard snorted derisively. "Please, my pride, it can't take many more hits."

"Well, in that case—"

"I was being sarcastic, sir." Shepard paused, a rare moment of thoughtfulness coming to him. "Just one thing before I go – what happened to Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams after I croaked? Scuttlebutt has the word on the others, but I didn't hear a thing about her."

David Anderson's face darkened, which gave Shepard a sinking feeling in his gut. "She's on a top secret assignment. I can't say right now."

"Because you don't trust me. Got it."

"You're a son of a bitch, Shepard," David Anderson said simply and clapped the man on the shoulder plate. "But you're a good son of a bitch. I have faith that you know what you're doing."

John Shepard, N7 marine, first human Spectre, proud fiend of slavers, grudging savior of the galaxy, professional armed lunatic and notorious bamf, had been less terrified listening to Sovereign's rant on Virmire regarding the end of all organic life than he was hearing that simple statement from his former mentor. "Anderson," he began, "weren't you the one who told me not to put all my MRE's in one basket?"

Anderson smiled sadly and a wistful look came into his eye. "A great man once took the tiniest bits of bread and fish and fed a whole community, with nothing but the power of faith."

". . . Was it me?"

"What? No, it was Jesus of Nazareth, you dumbass."

Shepard crossed his arms and pouted. "Well I only asked because it sounded like something I would do."

Anderson looked a little disturbed. "Point is . . . dammit, Shepard, you made me forget my point. Something about faith and the waters of life. It was really wise."

Shepard, instead of contemplating his actions like any other rational being, shrugged it off. "I'm sure it was, but it doesn't mean much to a dead man walking. See, I don't know if you noticed, Anderson, but I died."

"But you're back," Anderson affirmed. "And better than ever, except for those horrific facial scars."

"Yeah, for better or for wo – wait, what?"

Anderson grimaced at the sight of Shepard's apparent facial scarring. "No offense, but you look like the bastard offspring of a geth husk and the Terminator."

Shepard grasped at his face as a slow, horrific realization dawned on him. "A-are you saying that I-I have _**SCARS**_ _?_ "

"Seriously," Udina interrupted rudely (apparently he got his wits back together). "When the hell are you people going to get out of my office?"

Shepard turned to his crew, feeling betrayed. "Why didn't any of you _tell me I had_ _ **scars?**_ _ **WHY? I thought we were friends! What the fuck is wrong with my face?**_ "

"Oh Christ," Miranda sulked. "We're going to be here all day, aren't we?"

She was answered only by the eerie cackle of Professor Mordin Solus.

* * *

Kasumi Goto was an odd little person. More importantly, though, she had holed up in the only section of the ship with a bar, and as a result she and the infamous commander were obligated to spend more time around another. Alcohol makes strange bedfellows. Luckily, Kasumi wasn't a very difficult person for Commander Shepard to get along with, even though she was a bit of a klepto. (He'd found two of his favorite pens and a bracelet of Miranda's on Goto's coffee table, but politely ignored them, since they were Cerberus' property anyway. He even considered encouraging her to steal more things, since he felt the evil organization deserved it.)

And so it was, with a drink in hand that was helping him cope with his newfound facial scarring (that had been the shitfit of the ages, oh yes), and his newest crew member Kasumi Goto at his side, Commander Shepard peered down at the tiny space hamster in its cage before him.

"By default of existing," he informed her, "you are better than Garrus, Zaeed, and Joker combined at naming things. Literally anything is better than 'Doctor Von Satan' or 'Darth EvilDeathVoid' or 'Sally Hemmings.' So you're going to help me name this little guy. Consider it your initiation into the crew."

"Oooh, it's so cute!" The thief cooed. She crouched down and made faces at the cute little animal. "Boy or girl?"

"Don't ask, don't tell."

"I think it's a boy. Name him Fluffy."

"Nah, too generic."

"Boo?"

"Too familiar."

Kasumi Goto paused and thought real hard. "Hmm. How about Crouchasaurus?"

Shepard almost rejected the idea on the spot, but reconsidered. "Weirdly sexual. I like it! It's catchy. Courchasaurus it is."

Kasumi shrugged. "Well, it's better than Crunchbite – that was going to be my next suggestion." She carefully pulled the top off of the cage and picked up the terrified little animal, making cooing noises. "I dub thee Crouchasaurus, the space hamster."

Shepard topped off his drink and put the glass down on the bar. He went over and bent to the hamster's eye level, smiled, and scratched Crouchasaurus' breakable little head. "Welcome to the _Normandy_."

_*squeak*_


	7. Special Tactic Minsc

* * *

Onboard the Blue Suns-operated prison ship, _Purgatory_ , a standoff was taking place.

"So let me get this straight," said Shepard, brow furrowed as he attempted to process what he was hearing, "you . . . want me to hand over my guns, and then walk into a prison. Unarmed. With no guns."

"That's what 'surrender your arms' means," the turian merc affirmed with a nod.

Shepard nodded right back and scratched his stubble, his brow – if even possible – furrowing further. "Right, and you expect me – Commander Shepard, Council Spectre, galactic badass, yadda, yadda yadda, to go along with this without a peep. Just lay back, think of Earth, and take this one for the team. That's more or less what you expect to happen."

"Well," the guard grumbled, shifting from foot to foot, "It kinda sounds stupid when you say it like that."

"No," Miranda corrected from the sidelines, sounding bored, "it sounds stupid regardless."

"Right," Shepard agreed, "because it _is_ the stupidest thing I've heard all week, and that's really impressive considering I just dealt with Councilor Velarn not half a day ago. Additionally, Jacob Taylor is a member of my squad. Oh, and Joker is my pilot. Also, I'm working for Cerberus, the most incompetent group of villains since . . . hell, I don't even have a good analogy for this. S-since _ever?_ " He glanced over at Miranda, who was now glaring at him with the force that could crush a star. "Yeah, with that, I'd say we've met our quota on stupid shit. But this is _topping_ it."

"Wait, was that a joke, or is there really a quota on stupid?" Garrus queried, throwing a talon in the air. "Sorry, human things sometimes throw me. I can never be too sure."

Shepard sighed and nodded, a dark look crossing his scarred, cybernetic face. "God, do I wish I was joking. Ever since President Bieber was elected as the Immortal President of Earth back in '36, Alliance squadrons had to have a certain amount of retarded bullshit they could suffer through," he recited bitterly. "It's the _law_."

"But Cerberus isn't Alliance," Garrus pointed out.

"Used to be, before they went rogue and split," Shepard explained, looking disgusted. "I really hate Affirmative Action."

"For once," Miranda noted, "you and I agree on something."

The guard sighed, paying no attention to the exchange. "Look, I can't let you in the facility armed like that. I'm just doing my job. Give me a break here, buddy."

Oh, how Shepard laughed. "Ha-ha-ha! Not fucking happening."

"You heard the man," the first guard said to the completely identical mercenary to his left. They shared a nod, then locked and loaded.

That was when the regular standoff turned into a Mexican standoff.

Unfortunately for the guards, they were facing Commander Shepard and his crew: one busty Cerberus operative with anger management issues, one nutty ex-cop turned vigilante with a face krogan women would die for, one aging mercenary with a body count higher than Cheech and Chong on April 20th at 4:20 in the afternoon, and not the least of which was the Man Himself. Before the Blue Suns mercs could even react, every single one of them had their guns at the ready, or in the case of Shepard, had a large flamethrower in hand that he'd just recently acquired from Dr. Solus and was just _begging_ for an excuse to torch something.

Needless to say, the mercenaries were intimidated. They fell back, exchanged doubtful glances, and in unison dropped their guns and fled, leaving behind a trail of foul-smelling urine.

Shepard and his crew lowered their weapons, very disappointed. "I didn't even get a chance to throw in a one-liner!" Garrus mourned.

"Blue fucking Suns," Zaeed growled, and spat on the ground in revulsion.

While the four bickered amongst themselves like children half their ages, an officious, turian officer strolled into the room, looking perturbed. He eyed the scene before him, suspiciously examining each and every one of the unruly lot before clearing his throat and making his presence known.

"Hey look, they sent one back!" Garrus exclaimed happily, pulling his gun back out.

"Can we shoot this one?" Zaeed grinned eagerly, putting the Blue Suns officer into his scope. "Look, e's not even wearing a helmet, like e's asking for it!"

The turian male looked flappable and offended, if such a thing even exists. It probably does not. "What the hell is going on here? This is an orderly facility! I won't have violence in my prison."

"That seems ironic," Shepard pointed out.

The official glared at him. "You were told to surrender your weapons, not point them in my face. As the owner of this vessel and possessor of the deepest voice, I _strongly_ suggest you comply."

Shepard rolled his eyes, his hands twitching around the flamethrower in his grasp. "Owner or no, I'm the one with the bigger guns here. You get to pry this flamethrower from my cold, dead fingers."

"This is getting ridiculous," Miranda complained. She holstered her pistol and approached the turian warden, inclining her head politely. "Warden Kuril, with all due respect, we are going to keep our weapons on us at all times and that stipulation is not negotiable. Your facility is known for its excellent security, so I'm sure that you can understand." She stared him down with her infamous Ice Queen Glare, while Zaeed and Garrus put away their weapons reluctantly. Shepard, however, enjoyed the feeling of his new flamethrower in his hands and absolutely refused to let it go, instead giving the turian warden the evil eye.

Warden Kuril stared at the foursome in silence, until, while under the pressure of both Shepard's and Miranda's glares, relented. "You have a point," he conceded to the Cerberus Operative. She nodded and resumed her place at Shepard's side, and the Spectre gave an approving nod.

"Please, follow me," Kuril ordered and beckoned the group forward. He murmured something unintelligible into his comm, and then turned back to Shepard. "Your package is being prepped as we speak, Commander. While Cerberus' funds clear, you can head to Out-processing for retrieval."

The prison-ship _Purgatory_ was a sight for sore eyes, by which I mean your eyes literally felt sore looking at it. It was a hellish conglomeration of cold steel and sharp angles, and to make matters worse it was run by one of the most infamous/idiotic group of dastardly mercenaries in the known galaxy – The Blue Suns. Shepard had recently gained a grudge on Garrus' behalf against the Blue Suns after what they'd done to his friend's face, and for that reason the flamethrower never once left his hands.

On their way to Out-processing, it occurred to Shepard that perhaps bringing Zaeed Massani along for the ride might not have been the best of ideas after the aging bounty hunter threatened to kill the third guard they came across. The fourth one he actually shot in the knee, and Shepard didn't even bother to stop him, opting only to glare Warden Kuril down and silently _beg_ the guy to do anything about it.

Miranda, at that point, was banging her head against the prison ship's walls repeatedly.

At some point, Kuril had left them and simply pointed them in the right direction, claiming that he had "things" that he "had" to "do." None of them particularly cared, especially after hearing on their little mini-tour that the entire prison ship was just a big extortion racket, with Kuril literally charging nearby planets to house their worst criminals or they'd release said criminals on the galaxy without warning. In special cases, they actually sold criminals to organizations like Cerberus for profit, such as the case with Jack, Subject Zero, whom Shepard was there to acquire. The N7 glared at Miranda for the rest of the trip for not informing him that he'd be "dealing in slaves, now, I mean, _really_ Lawson? What are we, batarians?"

Down the ominous hallway to a door labeled ominously, 'OUTPROCESSING,' a prisoner in a random cell was being beat to death. Shepard stopped to observe for a few seconds before shrugging and walking away, mentally filing the incident under 'Not Shepard's Problem.'

The second cell they passed contained a loudmouthed little man who wouldn't stop banging on the glass walls and shouting at the group for things like, "help, help, I'm innocent, plz buy me."

Shepard stopped long enough to give the prisoner one of his patented glares. "Whaddya want?" He demanded.

The prisoner gulped. "I want out of this place! Come on man, if you're buying prisoners, can you buy me? I don't care what you do with me . . . it has to be better than this place!"

"Can't be that bad," Zaeed scoffed. "I was in a batarian prison once. Now _that_ was a fucking nightmare. Any prison run by jackoffs like the Blue Suns has to be heaven compared to that place."

"Every day I learn a new thing about you," Shepard remarked, "and it all makes a little more sense."

"Please!" The pathetic little prisoner pleaded. "Come on, man."

"We're here for Jack, not you," Miranda interjected, hoping to bring the party back on track.

"Wait, you're here for _Jack_?" The prisoner's tune began to change, and he backed away from the glass, looking suddenly frightened. His eyes widened and he shook his head back and forth. "No way man, n-no no. Forget I said anything! I want nothing to do with Jack. The guys in cell-block B may be animals, but at least they're not Jack!"

Miranda frowned, dubious. "It can't be that bad," she echoed Zaeed.

"I haven't showered for _four months,_ " the prisoner stressed. "But at least we'll be rid of Jack." His face fell, suddenly looking like a lost, dejected, criminal puppy. "Man, I'm _never_ getting out of this place . . . all I did was jaywalk . . . and then stole a ship full of nuns and orphans . . . crashed it into a sun . . ." He sighed in self-pity.

John Shepard turned on his sympathetic-face. "Don't worry buddy, I was in a hellish prison once too."

"You were?" Garrus stated, mandibles clicking in surprise.

The soldier nodded. "I sure was. But now I'm almost finished." The prisoner frowned, lost for words, and Shepard turned back to his crew. "Let's go get Jack and jet."

The powerful posse finally reached Out-processing, where a helpful lab assistant directed them to a small door on the far wall. When they approached it, it hissed open only to reveal an empty cell. Shepard blinked, baffled. "Wha-?"

" _I'm terribly sorry about this, Commander Shepard,_ " hissed an unapologetic Warden Kuril from the intercom, " _but you're more valuable as a prisoner than as a customer._ "

Shepard glared up at the buzzing intercom, realizing that he'd just been played. "Whatever happened to 'the customer is always right?'" He accused.

" _I'm a mercenary commander running a prison extortion racket in space,_ " Kuril's voice deadpanned. " _If you're trying to guilt trip me, don't bother. I've heard it all before._ "

"Blue fucking Suns," Zaeed growled, shaking his head. It was beginning to sound like the bounty hunter's mantra at this rate.

" _Besides,_ " Kuril continued, " _Cerberus' funds never cleared._ _You cheapskates are dead!_ "

Shepard glared at Miranda again and she glared back, a little tired of taking the blame. "I am not the Illusive Man," she offered spitefully. "If you want to point fingers, point them at yourself, Shepard. I just work here."

"Goddamn it," Shepard growled and primed his flamethrower. "I don't know why I'm surprised. This figures. Well everyone, this is about to turn sour."

Zaeed was the only one who was grinning. "And here I was, all worried there would be no violence on this mission. Should've known better with you, Shepard."

" _Gee,_ _I was hoping this could be resolved without violence._ " Kuril's tones sounded anything but hopeful, however – maybe gleeful would be a better word. " _I'm afraid you won't be leaving this facility, Commander._ "

Commander Shepard snorted derisively. "I don't know what you've heard about me, Warden, but I'm Commander goddamn Shepard. Near death situations, impossible missions, and points of no return? Those are kind of my thing." He motioned to his turian friend and Garrus dutifully shot the intercom before they could hear anymore bull on Warden Kuril's end.

Suddenly, a loud, irritating alarm blared overhead into decibels that would drive mosquitos fucking bananas. The lone scientist that was in their room turned to the foursome and fumbled for his pistol, but after Shepard pointed his flamethrower at him, the scientist apparently re-thought his decision and ran out of the room screaming at the top of his lungs, arms flailing.

They took up defensive positions around the random and conveniently placed desks and waited for the cavalry to arrive. Seventeen dead Blue Suns mercs and various FENRIS and LOKI mechs later and they were out of Out-processing, headed towards the cryogenic chamber where Jack was kept with Miranda taking point, since she was the only person who could read the freaking map.

Though the foursome could see very clearly the entire cryogenic chamber from the observation room they were in, there was no clear way to get the individual known as 'Jack' out of there, except for some kind of computer with blinking lights. "Hey, someone who can operate this mystifying nonsense you call technology," Shepard ordered, waving his hands at the console, "get Jack out of there."

"I'll do it," Garrus volunteered. "I'm an early adapter. Lessee here . . . uh oh."

Shepard frowned. "What? No uh oh. You're a hard-ass ex-cop, you don't get to say 'uh-oh.'"

"This system sucks krogan quad!" Vakarian exclaimed, slamming a fist down on the console. "I can get Jack out of cryo by flipping this switch here, but it'll release all the other prisoners on this level too. It must be some kind of failsafe that barefaced dick, Kuril installed."

Shepard frowned, did a classic face-palm-sigh. "I can't complain about this. It's my fault for thinking we met our quota on stupid shit earlier. Clearly, we have a long way to go. Ugh. Now we're going to have to plow our way through the prison population, _and_ through Kuril's men."

Zaeed cackled like the madman he was. "Hell yeah. This is gonna be fun!"

Shepard nodded to Garrus and he pushed a few magical buttons on the mysterious console in front of him. A few seconds later, a cryo tube rose out of the ground and opened up to reveal a bald, half-naked woman covered in tattoos dressed in nothing but pants and straps.

They all stared, shocked at the sight in front of them.

Zaeed, in particular, was confuddled. That's a fun word, confuddled. Don't take it, it's mine, I made it up. "Wait, I thought we was here to get some master criminal biotic, not some scrawny little trannie!"

"There's no mistaking it," Miranda murmured, "that girl is codename Subject Zero. I wonder why the files . . ."

The girl that was Jack, apparently, woke up quite suddenly, struggling against her restraints with a strength that belied her scrawny frame. She stumbled briefly, trying to get her bearings, just as two massive YMIR mechs appeared and pointed twin missiles at her bald head. She snarled, crouching defensively like an animal – the foursome were about to leave the room and come to her aid, when the shit hit the fan.

In a massive explosion of biotic energy the likes of which Shepard had never seen, the YMIR mechs exploded on the spot and Jack disappeared, burning through the nearby walls like they were paper.

"Ah shit."

The foursome plowed their way passed the sparking heaps of mechs and pursued the impressive hole Jack had made in the ship. "What? You don't see that every day" –was Garrus' defense as Shepard caught him snapping a picture of it with his omni-tool. Following the hole in the wall was a steady trail of bloody, brutalized bodies of the Blue Suns guards (which Zaeed had a lot of fun spitting and dancing on) – it was an all-around carnage fest that Jack had caused. Shepard just sniffed, a tear almost coming to his eye as he became wistful, and remembered Omega.

The trail of bodies eventually led to a huge antechamber where several riots were happening simultaneously between the prisoners and the guards, who were shooting at anything and everyone. One of the prisoners managed to get off a shot somewhere near Shepard's head, which startled him. "Hot damn, I forgot we released all those guys a few seconds ago."

"How could you forget something as important as that?" Miranda _had_ to ask.

Shepard stared at her for a few seconds before blinking in confusion. "I-I'm sorry Miranda, what? I wasn't paying attention." He glanced around, appearing surprised at the sight before him. "Holy shit, where'd all these prisoners come from?"

Miranda Lawson sighed. "Nevermind. I should know better by now."

"You really should," Zaeed said unhelpfully.

Shepard let off his flamethrower at once, torching the crowds before them while cackling like a madman. Zaeed did what he was best at and raised hell whilst Miranda biotically threw any stragglers into Shepard's line of fire. Garrus let off headshot after headshot, calling each one out before him like some kind of . . . VI that . . . does a thing . . . like that thing. God, whatever.

They fought their way through hordes of Blue Suns, through swarms of escaped prisoners, through armies of mechs; they defended their position from their enemies thoughtless of the cost; they fought them on the beaches, they fought them on the landing grounds, they fought them in the fields and in the streets, they fought them in the hills. We will never give up, we will **never surrender!**

And then, somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away, a man in a room with only three walls discovered that his fourth wall was missing. Somewhere else that was far, far away, a salarian doctor cackled.

Meanwhile, back in _Purgatory,_ after abridging a lot of needless and potentially interesting action scenes, the group encountered Warden Kuril, who was standing on top of a pile of junk looking very kingly in his fancy tech-armor.

"Warden!" Shepard cried valiantly, his flamethrower a gleaming beacon of hope, his eyes glittering with what might have been an acute sense of virtue and righteousness, or drunkenness. "We have fought your men on the beaches, the landing grounds, the fields, the streets, and the hills! We have defeated all the foes you set upon us! We have come to end you and your tyranny, once and for all!"

His three companions stood behind their illustrious leader, each of them baffled. "Wh-what the hell is happening?" The cat-suited Cerberus operative blurted, she being the only one of the three not stunned into complete silence.

"You may take our lives, Kuril," the Commander vowed darkly, "but you will not ta—"

"Oh like _hell_ he will," Garrus interjected – but with a sudden flash of insight, he realized what Shepard was doing, and aimed his trusty rifle and at Kuril's head, waiting for a good shot.

"— ** _OUR FREEDOM!_** " Shepard finished.

"I still don't know what's happening!" Miranda reminded everyone. "Commander, this kind of behavior I'd expect from Dr. Solus, but—"

". . . What the hell?" Kuril muttered out of nowhere, utterly baffled by the sight before him. He then made the last and most fatal mistake of his life – lowering his rifle by precisely one centimeter, which was more than enough for a master sniper like Garrus to get in a lucky shot.

With a deafening boom, Kuril's head turned into mush and the former Warden collapsed the ground with a boneless, mushy thud.

They stared at what used to be Kuril in silence.

"Hah!" Garrus laughed, sharing a high-five with his good buddy, John Shepard. " **Boom** , headshot!"

"Nice one, good buddy," Shepard complimented.

Miranda stared between the two, appearing frightened. "D-Did I just hallucinate?" She wondered aloud. "My god. Have I finally gone insane? Is this punishment from the gods for my years of senseless hedonism?"

"Well, talking to yourself _is_ a sign of madness, princess," Zaeed told her, helpful as usual. Everyone ignored him.

"You didn't hallucinate at all," Garrus corrected. "Though I can understand why someone who is new to STM might think they might be hallucinating. I thought I was going crazy when I first experienced it. Thought Shepard was going crazy too."

Shepard nodded, thinking back to that time—but no, now was not the time for flashbacks! "Yeah, good times."

"Ess-tee-em?" Miranda repeated dubiously, raising a dark eyebrow. "Pray tell, what does that stand for?"

"Special Tactic Minsc," Shepard explained, as if it were _all_ so obvious. "Picked up the acronym from Gunny Ellison back in basic – I don't remember what it originally stood for, so I just made up a new definition. Knowing Ellison it was something totally retarded, like the Stubbed Toe Maneuver, or Sweet Transvestite Magnifico. Anyway, my version of STM is based solely on one principle: when you're in a situation when you lack the advantage—"

"Like when facing a mercenary commander perched on that pile of junk with full shields and a crapload of shells," Garrus threw in, holding up a talon.

"—yeah, like that, and you can't _scare_ your enemy into submission or _impress_ them with your superior tactics . . . _baffle_ them with your stupidity."

Miranda didn't really have much to say to this, and Zaeed was too busy dancing on Kuril's corpse to pitch in with witty remarks. The tactic, goddamn it all, made sense, which was really the worst thing in the world. Miranda didn't understand – _couldn't_ understand – why so much of Shepard made _sense_ when it didn't have any right to make sense, but it seemed at times that reality itself would bend to suit the Spectre's needs. In the end, she wasn't surprised anymore.

It took her a few moments to come to terms with it all, and when she finally did, all she could say was, "well, you certainly accomplished that." She compartmentalized her existential crisis and disappointment in life into a neat little file in the back of her mind, and returned at the task at hand. "Kuril's down, for the best really, but we still have to find Jack."

"Oh yeah. Forgot we came here for her, what with all the shooting and exploding heads and obscure pop culture references."

"It shouldn't be that difficult," Miranda said dryly. "We'll just follow the trail of violence and dead bodies."

"Seems like we're always doing that no matter where we go," the former marine commented. "I wonder why that is? Anyway, someone collect Zaeed so we can get out of here – and tell him I don't wanna see him dance in front of me ever again. It's just awful, in addition to being irreverent and tacky."

They followed the trail of bodies Jack had left behind in her bloodthirsty mania all the way back up to the hangar, where Shepard caught a glimpse of a scantily clad convict with familiar tattoos beating up on some Blue Suns. Once they were effectively neutralized, she took one look at the Cerberus-logo on the Normandy, shrieked, "CERBERUS!" - was apparently displeased, and started throwing a temper-tantrum.

While Jack was kicking and screaming like a child, a random Blue Suns merc managed to sneak up on her and point a gun at her head. Seconds before the merc could take the shot he snagged a bullet in the chest, courtesy of Shepard, the sound of which startled Jack right out of her toddler-tantrum.

"Bluuuuurgh," the dying merc grumbled, "today was my last day . . . before . . . retirement!" _Then_ he died.

"What the fu—" Jack stopped kicking and screaming, looked behind her, then in front, then behind, and then back again. "Who the fuck are you?"

"You're welcome," Shepard said dryly.

"Oh please," Jack snarked, "he was already dead. Just didn't fucking know it. Now answer the fucking question."

"You sure say 'fuck' a lot," Shepard noted. "My name's Commander Shepard and I'm the man who's here to rescue you."

Jack scoffed at that, crossing her arms. "Tch. You sound like a pussy."

Shepard somehow managed to maintain a straight face, despite his constantly-drunk status, but his three companions busted up laughing. "That's rich, coming from the girl who was too busy throwing a temper tantrum to notice the guy sneaking up on her about to kill her – the guy I killed, might I add."

"Fuck you!" She snarled, instantly defensive.

"Chill, I was teasing. Clearly you're not used to taking jokes so I'll just cut to the chase – I need to assemble a team to save the galaxy from the Collectors, and for some reason you seem to be one of the only people with the skills I need."

Jack appeared to seriously consider this, before throwing her head back and laughing. "Right. Good one, asshole."

Honestly, Commander Shepard could see where she might think it was a joke. "No, I'm serious," he assured her. "We've one Chaotic Good vigilante, one Lawful Evil mercenary, a Chaotic Neutral master thief, two Lawful Stupid idiots, one Neutral shackled AI, and a mad doctor whose own moral alignment defies all known quantification. Plus ol' morally ambiguous Miranda here, whose sole function in life seems to be nagging me into submission." The XO in question snorted and rolled her eyes at this. "Honestly, Jack, I could give a shit if you don't believe me. This prison boat is going down Titanic-like, and my ship is the only way out, so you're coming with me whether you like it or not."

Jack's eyes narrowed. "Bull-the fuck-shit I am! I'm not going anywhere with fucking Cerberus shit-heads like you!"

A huge explosion rocked _Purgatory_ , sending everyone reeling. "I don't have time to argue this!" Shepard roared. "Look, what do you want? What'll it take to convince you? Let's compromise and get this over with – I want _off_ of this goddamn ship and _Christ_ could I use a drink or smoke right now!"

"This is taking too long, Shepard!" Miranda nagged. "We could just knock her out and drag her on board. It'd be easier in the long run."

"I'd like to see you fucking try, Cheerleader," Jack sneered, and Miranda sneered right back.

Shepard shook his head, holding up his hands in a show of peace to appease the very-angry-powerful biotic. "Hey now, we're not antagonizing the angry biotic ex-con, Miranda. We are not doing that so hard right now. Name your price, Jack."

Jack took one long look at the _Normandy._ "Alright. I bet your shiny ship has Cerberus files on it, right? I want those files."

"Deal." He stuck out his hand. Jack looked at it like it was something she'd never seen before, and then roughly shook it.

"Shepard," Miranda spoke up, her tone going into the place that Shepard was starting to call, 'The Nag Zone,' "you're not authorized to do that—"

"Aww, does the Cerberus cheerleader not like it?" Jack laughed. "Tough shit!"

"Yeah, this is gonna work out beautifully," Shepard said to himself wryly as _Purgatory_ almost literally went up in flames all around them, "I can tell."

* * *

Miranda cleared her throat, causing the violent woman across from her to fix her with a glare so hateful that it rivaled even Shepard's own infamous glare. "Welcome aboard the _Normandy,_ Jack," Miranda stated blandly, nonplussed. "My name is Miranda Lawson, and I'm Commander Shepard's second in command. Here on this ship, we follow protocol and rules. You do know what those are, yes? Or will I have to use small words?"

Jack had just about had enough, and was seconds away from bursting. "Tell the fucking cheerleader to back off, Shepard," she said. "I want my part of the deal."

Shepard sighed, putting down his glass of whiskey on the table with a gentle clatter. He stared up at the ceiling, wondering 'why me, Blasto? Why?' "Sure," he finally said. "Whatever. Lawson, give her the files so she can shut up about it."

"Hah!" Jack crowed victoriously. "You and me, cheerleader? We're gonna be _best_ friends, you hear that? You, me, and every last dirty little fucking secret in your fucking organization. Don't take too long or I'll kill everyone on board and take this ship for a joy ride. You need me, I'll be somewhere in the engine room. Later, Shepard."

"Bye," he waved vaguely at Jack's back and picked up his drink. He sipped at it, pointedly ignoring Miranda's icy glare. "What? What'd I do?" He finally looked over to the dark-haired operative.

Miranda Lawson only shook her head, and walked away.

After a few more blissfully uneventful drunken seconds, feeling suddenly hungry, Shepard finally left the debriefing room and headed to the CIC.

"Oh, hi Commander!" Yeoman Chambers greeted cheerfully from her permanent position right in the middle of everyone's business.

Shepard struggled to remember her first name, but gave up after a second. "Chambers," he nodded.

"I just had the most _interesting_ conversation with Jack," the chatty red-head went on. "Her tattoos are marvelous, but I think she might have some very deep, personal issues, possibly a lot of trauma in her past."

"You don't say," Shepard said dryly.

"Yeah, you know, maybe I'm just sensing that from the way she violently kills people indiscriminately or if you just piss her off in the slightest, or maybe from the way she gets defensive about personal topics, or the way she used to be a violent ex-con and rattles on about the various ways Cerberus tortured her as a child."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Shepard held up his hands, "slow down. Cerberus tortured her as a kid? Really?"

Chambers shrugged. "I guess. She just sort of mentioned it in passing. She threatened to cut my head off and eat it when I tried to bring it up, but strangely from the way she mentioned it it's almost as if she _wanted_ me to talk about it. Or maybe she was just being pissy? I can't tell with her. Oh, she also approaches sex casually, which is a sign of emotional instability. I don't think she even knows what she really wants."

Shepard shrugged in turn. "Jack seemed pretty clear on what she wanted back there on the _Purgatory_. 'Gimme those files, bitch,' and all that. Anyway, your nosy-ass therapy aside, I wanted to say that you were _just_ the person I wanted to see. I have a top secret mission for you."

"Ooh, really?" She clapped her hands, grinning and spinning in place. "What is it, Shepard?"

"I want you to go down to the kitchen, and – are you listening very carefully, Chambers?" When she nodded, he continued. "Okay. I want you to go down to the kitchen and make me a ham and cheese sandwich, with pickles, and mustard. Got that? Just a simple sandwich. Now hop to it!" He clapped his hands.

The yeoman's ego deflated instantly, as did her good mood. "B-but Commander, that's not really in my job desc—"

"Wow, Kelly," Shepard interrupted, finally remembering her name, "what you were saying, that sounded suspiciously like insubordination. But _that_ can't be true, because I'm Commander goddamn Shepard, and I'm your commanding officer, and I've killed for a whole lot less than one sandwich."

Chambers' eyes widened and she nodded. "No sir! On it, sir! I'll uh, go get you that sandwich."

"I thought so. Chop, chop! Hurry! Time's a wasting!"

While Kelly ran off on her top secret super mission, Shepard poked his head in the cockpit and winced at Joker's perpetually pantsless state. "Gah! Goddamn it, Joker!" he barked. "What did I say about pants? This isn't Tuesday!"

"Every day is Tuesday in my cockpit," Joker retorted. Then, he grinned. "Hey, haha, I made a pun! Get it, Commander?"

"God no. I mean yes, I get it. I just wish I didn't." Shepard just shook his head, trying but failing to erase the image of Joker without pants from his mind. "That's it, I'm visiting Mordin after this and telling him to gouge my eyes out. I did _not_ need to see that, man. The very last thing on the list of things I wanted to see today was your funny business!"

"You're just jealous," the pilot sniffled. "And don't knock my civil rights. It's my right to not wear pants if I don't wanna."

"I don't have the time or energy explain to you all of what's wrong with your ideas, Joker. I just came up here to tell you to set a course for Korlus so we can recruit that krogan warlord . . . and now I'm going to go pour some molten sulfur into my eyes."

"Whatever, Commander." Joker started whistling happily to himself while John Shepard stalked off, headed straight for Mordin's terrifying laboratory, knowing in his heart that he would never _ever_ be able to forget that image. Some things – like hairy half-naked pilots, or geth impaling civilians by the dozen on their magic sticks, or Collectors ripping your ship in half with lasers while you drifted through the cold of space steadily losing oxygen, or vicious thresher maws devouring your whole squad – they stuck with you.


End file.
